Displaying publications 41 - 60 of 312 in total

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  1. Motorcycle-related spinal injury: crash characteristics
    Zulkipli ZH, Abdul Rahmat AM, Mohd Faudzi SA, Paiman NF, Wong SV, Hassan A
    Accid Anal Prev, 2012 Nov;49:237-44.
    PMID: 23036400 DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2011.12.011
    This study presents an analysis of crash characteristics of motorcyclists who sustained spinal injuries in motorcycle crashes. The aim of the study is to identify the salient crash characteristics that would help explain spinal injury risks for motorcyclists. Data were retrospectively collected from police case reports that were archived at MIROS from year 2005 to 2007. The data were categorized into two subcategories; the first group was motorcycle crashes with spinal injury (case) and the second group was motorcycle crashes without spinal injury (control). A total of 363 motorcyclists with spinal injury and 873 motorcyclists without spinal injury were identified and analyzed. Descriptive analysis and multivariate analysis were performed in order to determine the odds of each characteristic in contributing to spinal injury. Single vehicle crash, collision with fixed objects and crash configuration were found to have significant influence on motorcyclists in sustaining spinal injury (p<0.05). Although relatively few than other impact configurations, the rear-end impacted motorcyclist shows the highest risk of spinal injury. Helmets have helped to reduce head injury but they did not seem to offer corresponding protection for the spine in the study. With a growing number of young motorcyclists, further efforts are needed to find effective measures to help reduce the crash incidents and severity of spinal injury. In sum, the study provides some insights on some vital crash characteristics associated with spinal injury that can be further investigated to determine the appropriate counter-measures and prevention strategies to reduce spinal injury.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  2. Normal and hypoacoustic infant cry signal classification using time-frequency analysis and general regression neural network
    Hariharan M, Sindhu R, Yaacob S
    Comput Methods Programs Biomed, 2012 Nov;108(2):559-69.
    PMID: 21824676 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2011.07.010
    Crying is the most noticeable behavior of infancy. Infant cry signals can be used to identify physical or psychological status of an infant. Recently, acoustic analysis of infant cry signal has shown promising results and it has been proven to be an excellent tool to investigate the pathological status of an infant. This paper proposes short-time Fourier transform (STFT) based time-frequency analysis of infant cry signals. Few statistical features are derived from the time-frequency plot of infant cry signals and used as features to quantify infant cry signals. General Regression Neural Network (GRNN) is employed as a classifier for discriminating infant cry signals. Two classes of infant cry signals are considered such as normal cry signals and pathological cry signals from deaf infants. To prove the reliability of the proposed features, two neural network models such as Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Time-Delay Neural Network (TDNN) trained by scaled conjugate gradient algorithm are also used as classifiers. The experimental results show that the GRNN classifier gives very promising classification accuracy compared to MLP and TDNN and the proposed method can effectively classify normal and pathological infant cries.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  3. Fulltext Using primary care prescribing databases to determine drug switching and continuation of care
    Mohamed IN, Helms PJ, McLay JS
    Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol, 2012 Dec;111(6):396-401.
    PMID: 22734606 DOI: 10.1111/j.1742-7843.2012.00917.x
    Drug switching is a common medical practice. It indicates continuation of treatment regardless of the reason why the original therapy was stopped and switched. Therefore, the aims of this study were to develop a novel method for determining drug switching from routinely acquired NHS health data and to explore the aspect of continuation of care for patients. Patients who were first prescribed ramipril, simvastatin and an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) between 1 March 2004 and 28 February 2007 and discontinued their medication within 6 months of the index prescription were identified from the PTI database. The identified patients were then categorized into three groups: i) patients who were switched to a different drug for the same medical condition, ii) patients who were being prescribed with other types of antihypertensive/lipid-regulating drug prior to the initiation of study; and iii) patients who were without any continuation of care or therapy. Twenty percent (808), 29%(1429) and 14%(455) of the identified patients discontinued ramipril, simvastatin and ARB, respectively, within 6 months of an index prescription. Among the ramipril discontinuation group, 36.4% of the patients were switched to another antihypertensive, while another 31.6% of them were without continuation of care. In patients discontinuing ARB, 30.6% were switched, while another 30.1% were without continuation of treatment. In patients discontinuing simvastatin, 28.8% were switched to another lipid-regulating medicine, while another 63.1% of them were without continuation of care. The results of this study confirm that primary care prescribing databases can be used to determine drug-switching information and continuation of care/therapy.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual*
  4. Fulltext A charismatic new species of green lacewing discovered in Malaysia (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae): the confluence of citizen scientist, online image database and cybertaxonomy
    Winterton SL, Guek HP, Brooks SJ
    Zookeys, 2012.
    PMID: 22936863 DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.214.3220
    An unusual new species of green lacewing (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Semachrysa jadesp. n.) is described from Selangor (Malaysia) as a joint discovery by citizen scientist and professional taxonomists. The incidental nature of this discovery is underscored by the fact that the species was initially photographed and then released, with images subsequently posted to an online image database. It was not until the images in the database were randomly examined by the professional taxonomists that it was determined that the species was in fact new. A subsequent specimen was collected at the same locality and is described herein along with another specimen identified from nearby Sabah.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  5. Fulltext Adding glycaemic index and glycaemic load functionality to DietPLUS, a Malaysian food composition database and diet intake calculator
    Shyam S, Wai TN, Arshad F
    Asia Pac J Clin Nutr, 2012;21(2):201-8.
    PMID: 22507605
    This paper outlines the methodology to add glycaemic index (GI) and glycaemic load (GL) functionality to food DietPLUS, a Microsoft Excel-based Malaysian food composition database and diet intake calculator. Locally determined GI values and published international GI databases were used as the source of GI values. Previously published methodology for GI value assignment was modified to add GI and GL calculators to the database. Two popular local low GI foods were added to the DietPLUS database, bringing up the total number of foods in the database to 838 foods. Overall, in relation to the 539 major carbohydrate foods in the Malaysian Food Composition Database, 243 (45%) food items had local Malaysian values or were directly matched to International GI database and another 180 (33%) of the foods were linked to closely-related foods in the GI databases used. The mean ± SD dietary GI and GL of the dietary intake of 63 women with previous gestational diabetes mellitus, calculated using DietPLUS version3 were, 62 ± 6 and 142 ± 45, respectively. These values were comparable to those reported from other local studies. DietPLUS version3, a simple Microsoft Excel-based programme aids calculation of diet GI and GL for Malaysian diets based on food records.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual*
  6. Fulltext Ligand-based virtual screening using Bayesian inference network and reweighted fragments
    Ahmed A, Abdo A, Salim N
    ScientificWorldJournal, 2012;2012:410914.
    PMID: 22623895 DOI: 10.1100/2012/410914
    Many of the similarity-based virtual screening approaches assume that molecular fragments that are not related to the biological activity carry the same weight as the important ones. This was the reason that led to the use of Bayesian networks as an alternative to existing tools for similarity-based virtual screening. In our recent work, the retrieval performance of the Bayesian inference network (BIN) was observed to improve significantly when molecular fragments were reweighted using the relevance feedback information. In this paper, a set of active reference structures were used to reweight the fragments in the reference structure. In this approach, higher weights were assigned to those fragments that occur more frequently in the set of active reference structures while others were penalized. Simulated virtual screening experiments with MDL Drug Data Report datasets showed that the proposed approach significantly improved the retrieval effectiveness of ligand-based virtual screening, especially when the active molecules being sought had a high degree of structural heterogeneity.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  7. Fulltext An elemental concentration open source database for hogdahl-convention and westcott-formalism based on ko-inaa method in malaysia
    Yavar, A.R., S. Sarmani, Tan, C.Y., N.N. Rafie, Lim, S.W. Edwin, Khoo, K.S.
    Journal of Nuclear and Related Technologies, 2012;2012(2):93-98.
    MyJurnal
    An electronic database has been developed and implemented for ko-INAA method in Malaysia. Databases are often developed according to national requirements. This database contains constant nuclear data for ko-INAA method; Hogdahl-convention and Westcott-formalism as 3 separate command user interfaces. It has been created using Microsoft Access 2007 under a Windows operating system. This database saves time and the quality of results can be assured when the calculation of neutron flux parameters and concentration of elements by ko-INAA method are utilised. An evaluation of the database was conducted by IAEA Soil7 where the results published which showed a high level of consistency.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  8. Classification of childhood epilepsies in a tertiary pediatric neurology clinic using a customized classification scheme from the international league against epilepsy 2010 report
    Khoo TB
    J Child Neurol, 2013 Jan;28(1):56-9.
    PMID: 22532543 DOI: 10.1177/0883073812439623
    In its 2010 report, the International League Against Epilepsy Commission on Classification and Terminology had made a number of changes to the organization, terminology, and classification of seizures and epilepsies. This study aims to test the usefulness of this revised classification scheme on children with epilepsies aged between 0 and 18 years old. Of 527 patients, 75.1% only had 1 type of seizure and the commonest was focal seizure (61.9%). A specific electroclinical syndrome diagnosis could be made in 27.5%. Only 2.1% had a distinctive constellation. In this cohort, 46.9% had an underlying structural, metabolic, or genetic etiology. Among the important causes were pre-/perinatal insults, malformation of cortical development, intracranial infections, and neurocutaneous syndromes. However, 23.5% of the patients in our cohort were classified as having "epilepsies of unknown cause." The revised classification scheme is generally useful for pediatric patients. To make it more inclusive and clinically meaningful, some local customizations are required.

    Study site: The pediatric neurology clinic at the Institute of Pediatrics, Kuala
    Lumpur Hospital
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual/statistics & numerical data
  9. Computerised image analysis of vitiligo lesion: evaluation using manually defined lesion areas
    Nugroho H, Ahmad Fadzil MH, Shamsudin N, Hussein SH
    Skin Res Technol, 2013 Feb;19(1):e72-7.
    PMID: 22233154 DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0846.2011.00610.x
    Vitiligo is a cutaneous pigmentary disorder characterized by depigmented macules and patches that result from loss of epidermal melanocytes. Physician evaluates the efficacy of treatment by comparing the extent of vitiligo lesions before and after treatment based on the overall visual impression of the treatment response. This method is called the physician's global assessment (PGA) which is subjective. In this article, we present an innovative digital image processing method to determine vitiligo lesion area in an objective manner.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  10. The journey of Malaysian NCVD-PCI (National Cardiovascular Disease Database-Percutaneous Coronary Intervention) Registry: a summary of three years report
    Ahmad WA, Ali RM, Khanom M, Han CK, Bang LH, Yip AF, et al.
    Int J Cardiol, 2013 Apr 30;165(1):161-4.
    PMID: 21920614 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2011.08.015
    The Malaysian National Cardiovascular Disease Database (NCVD) team presents Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Registry report for the year 2007 to 2009. It provides comprehensive information regarding practice and outcome of PCI in Malaysia.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual/trends*
  11. Characterization of Statin-Associated Myopathy Case Reports in Thailand Using the Health Product Vigilance Center Database
    Boonmuang P, Nathisuwan S, Chaiyakunapruk N, Suwankesawong W, Pokhagul P, Teerawattanapong N, et al.
    Drug Saf, 2013 Sep;36(9):779-87.
    PMID: 23615756 DOI: 10.1007/s40264-013-0055-5
    HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors [statins], a widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering therapy, are associated with muscle-related adverse events. While characteristics of such events are well documented in Western countries, little data exists for the Thai population.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  12. Ergonomics issues in national identity card for homeland security
    Yeow PH, Yuen YY, Loo WH
    Appl Ergon, 2013 Sep;44(5):719-29.
    PMID: 22841592 DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2012.04.017
    Ever since the 9/11 terrorist attack, many countries are considering the use of smart national identity card (SNIC) which has the ability to identify terrorists due to its biometric verification function. However, there are many ergonomics issues in the use of SNIC, e.g. card credibility. This research presents a case study survey of Malaysian users. Although most citizens (>96%) own MyKad (Malaysia SNIC), many do not carry it around and use its applications. This defeats one of its main purposes, i.e. combating terrorism. Thus, the research investigates ergonomics issues affecting the citizens' Intention to Use (ITU) MyKad for homeland security by using an extended technology acceptance model. Five hundred questionnaires were collected and analysed using structural equation modelling. Results show that perceived credibility and performance expectancy are the key issues. The findings provide many countries with insights into methods of addressing ergonomics issues and increasing adoption of SNIC for homeland security.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  13. Fulltext Ethnic differences in the occurrence of acute coronary syndrome: results of the Malaysian National Cardiovascular Disease (NCVD) Database Registry (March 2006 - February 2010)
    Lu HT, Nordin RB
    BMC Cardiovasc Disord, 2013;13:97.
    PMID: 24195639 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2261-13-97
    The National Cardiovascular Disease (NCVD) Database Registry represents one of the first prospective, multi-center registries to treat and prevent coronary artery disease (CAD) in Malaysia. Since ethnicity is an important consideration in the occurrence of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) globally, therefore, we aimed to identify the role of ethnicity in the occurrence of ACS among high-risk groups in the Malaysian population.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual*
  14. Fulltext Order batching in warehouses by minimizing total tardiness: a hybrid approach of weighted association rule mining and genetic algorithms
    Azadnia AH, Taheri S, Ghadimi P, Saman MZ, Wong KY
    ScientificWorldJournal, 2013;2013:246578.
    PMID: 23864823 DOI: 10.1155/2013/246578
    One of the cost-intensive issues in managing warehouses is the order picking problem which deals with the retrieval of items from their storage locations in order to meet customer requests. Many solution approaches have been proposed in order to minimize traveling distance in the process of order picking. However, in practice, customer orders have to be completed by certain due dates in order to avoid tardiness which is neglected in most of the related scientific papers. Consequently, we proposed a novel solution approach in order to minimize tardiness which consists of four phases. First of all, weighted association rule mining has been used to calculate associations between orders with respect to their due date. Next, a batching model based on binary integer programming has been formulated to maximize the associations between orders within each batch. Subsequently, the order picking phase will come up which used a Genetic Algorithm integrated with the Traveling Salesman Problem in order to identify the most suitable travel path. Finally, the Genetic Algorithm has been applied for sequencing the constructed batches in order to minimize tardiness. Illustrative examples and comparisons are presented to demonstrate the proficiency and solution quality of the proposed approach.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual*
  15. Fulltext Multipurpose contrast enhancement on epiphyseal plates and ossification centers for bone age assessment
    Chai HY, Swee TT, Seng GH, Wee LK
    Biomed Eng Online, 2013;12:27.
    PMID: 23565999 DOI: 10.1186/1475-925X-12-27
    The high variations of background luminance, low contrast and excessively enhanced contrast of hand bone radiograph often impede the bone age assessment rating system in evaluating the degree of epiphyseal plates and ossification centers development. The Global Histogram equalization (GHE) has been the most frequently adopted image contrast enhancement technique but the performance is not satisfying. A brightness and detail preserving histogram equalization method with good contrast enhancement effect has been a goal of much recent research in histogram equalization. Nevertheless, producing a well-balanced histogram equalized radiograph in terms of its brightness preservation, detail preservation and contrast enhancement is deemed to be a daunting task.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  16. Fulltext A trend analysis of major congenital anomalies in Penang, Malaysia
    Leela Anthony, Nagarajah Lee, Stephen Ambu, Lokman Hakim S.
    International e-Journal of Science, Medicine & Education, 2013;7(2):33-40.
    MyJurnal
    This study examined the trend of major congenital anomalies (CA) in the state of Penang using the ICD 10 database from 1999 to 2004. The data was collected from various health centres and hospitals. The aim was to study the magnitude of the problem for congenital anomalies in the state of Penang in terms of trends and also to calculate the incidence rate by districts. If a trend was noticed, this in turn will determine whether to carry out further in-depth studies in the future and to find out the linkages to the environment if any.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  17. Fulltext Content-based image retrieval using colour and shape fused features
    Mas Rina Mustaffa, Fatimah Ahmad, Ramlan Mahmod, Shyamala Doraisamy
    Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2013;21(1):161-168.
    MyJurnal
    Multi-feature methods are able to contribute to a more effective method compared to single-feature
    methods since feature fusion methods will be able to close the gap that exists in the single-feature
    methods. This paper presents a feature fusion method, which focuses on extracting colour and shape features for content-based image retrieval (CBIR). The colour feature is extracted based on the proposed Multi-resolution Joint Auto Correlograms (MJAC), while the shape information is obtained through the proposed Extended Generalised Ridgelet-Fourier (EGRF). These features are fused together through a proposed integrated scheme. The feature fusion method has been tested on the SIMPLIcity image database, where several retrieval measurements are utilised to compare the effectiveness of the proposed method with few other comparable methods. The retrieval results show that the proposed Integrated Colour-shape (ICS) descriptor has successfully obtained the best overall retrieval performance in all the retrieval measurements as compared to the benchmark methods, which include precision (53.50%), precision at 11 standard recall levels (52.48%), and rank (17.40).
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  18. Identifying contributing factors to fatal and serious injury motorcycle collisions involving children in Malaysia
    Oxley J, Ravi MD, Yuen J, Hoareau E, Hashim HH
    Ann Adv Automot Med, 2014 1 11;57:329-36.
    PMID: 24406968
    In Malaysia, motorcycle crashes constitute approximately 60 percent of all road trauma, and a substantial proportion involve children 16 years and younger. There are, however, many gaps in our knowledge on contributing factors to crashes and injury patterns amongst children killed and seriously injured in motorcycle crashes. The aim of this study was to examine fatal and serious injury motorcycle-related collisions to identify contributing factors and injury patterns amongst child motorcyclists. All identified motorcyclist fatal crashes between 2007 and 2011 (inclusive) were extracted from the national Police-reported crash database (M-ROADS) and a range of variables were selected for examination. A total of 17,677 crashes were extracted where a rider or pillion was killed and of these crashes 2,038 involved children, equating to 12 percent. Examination of crashes involving children revealed that some crashes involved more than two children on the motorcycle, therefore, overall children constituted 9.5% of fatal and 18.4% of serious injury collisions. A high proportion of child fatal or serious injury collisions involved the child as the rider (62%), and this was most common for children aged between 10 and 16 years. The majority of collisions occurred on rural roads, in speed limit zones of 50-70km/h, and approximately one-third occurred at an intersection. Collisions involving another motorcycle or a passenger vehicle contributed to 41% and 53% of the total fatalities and severe injuries, respectively. A high proportion (43.9%) of the children (25.5% riders and 18.8% pillion) sustained head injuries with 37.7% being in the 10-16 age group. Furthermore, 52.4% of the children sustaining head injuries did not wear a helmet. The implications of these findings for countermeasures within a Safe System framework, particularly interventions aimed at reducing the rate of unlicensed riding and helmet wearing, and infrastructure countermeasures are discussed.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  19. Fulltext Young coronary artery disease in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention
    Zuhdi AS, Mariapun J, Mohd Hairi NN, Wan Ahmad WA, Abidin IZ, Undok AW, et al.
    Ann Saudi Med, 2014 1 15;33(6):572-8.
    PMID: 24413861 DOI: 10.5144/0256-4947.2013.572
    BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Understanding the nature and pattern of young coronary artery disease (CAD) is important due to the tremendous impact on these patients' socio-economic and physical aspect. Data on young CAD in the southeast Asian region is rather patchy and limited. Hence we utilized our National Cardiovascular Disease Database (NCVD)-Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Registry to analyze young patients who underwent PCI in the year 2007 to 2009.

    DESIGN AND SETTINGS: This is a retrospective study of all patients who had undergone coronary angioplasty from 2007 to 2009 in 11 hospitals across Malaysia.

    METHODS: Data were obtained from the NCVD-PCI Registry, 2007 to 2009. Patients were categorized into 2 groups-young and old, where young was defined as less than 45 years for men and less than 55 years for women and old was defined as more than or equals to 45 years for men and more than or equals to 55 years for women. Patients' baseline characteristics, risk factor profile, extent of coronary disease and outcome on dis.charge, and 30-day and 1-year follow-up were compared between the 2 groups.

    RESULTS: We analyzed 10268 patients, and the prevalence of young CAD was 16% (1595 patients). There was a significantly low prevalence of Chinese patients compared to other major ethnic groups. Active smoking (30.2% vs 17.7%) and obesity (20.9% vs 17.3%) were the 2 risk factors more associated with young CAD. There is a preponderance toward single vessel disease in the young CAD group, and they had a favorable clinical outcome in terms of all-cause mortality at discharge (RR 0.49 [CI 0.26-0.94]) and 1-year follow-up (RR 0.47 [CI 0.19-1.15]).

    CONCLUSION: We observed distinctive features of young CAD that would serve as a framework in the primary and secondary prevention of the early onset CAD.

    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual
  20. Fulltext Automatic medical X-ray image classification using annotation
    Zare MR, Mueen A, Seng WC
    J Digit Imaging, 2014 Feb;27(1):77-89.
    PMID: 24092327 DOI: 10.1007/s10278-013-9637-0
    The demand for automatically classification of medical X-ray images is rising faster than ever. In this paper, an approach is presented to gain high accuracy rate for those classes of medical database with high ratio of intraclass variability and interclass similarities. The classification framework was constructed via annotation using the following three techniques: annotation by binary classification, annotation by probabilistic latent semantic analysis, and annotation using top similar images. Next, final annotation was constructed by applying ranking similarity on annotated keywords made by each technique. The final annotation keywords were then divided into three levels according to the body region, specific bone structure in body region as well as imaging direction. Different weights were given to each level of the keywords; they are then used to calculate the weightage for each category of medical images based on their ground truth annotation. The weightage computed from the generated annotation of query image was compared with the weightage of each category of medical images, and then the query image would be assigned to the category with closest weightage to the query image. The average accuracy rate reported is 87.5 %.
    Matched MeSH terms: Databases, Factual/statistics & numerical data*
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