The objective of this paper was to determine the prevalence of overactive bladder syndrome (OABS) and its risk factors among patients with other gynaecological problems.
Taxonomic status of fanged frogs from the Peninsular Malaysia, previously assigned to Limnonectes kuhlii, is assessed using genetic and morphological approaches. Phylogenetic relationships inferred from sequences of the mitochondrial and nuclear genes revealed that the fanged frogs from the Peninsula form a monophyletic group and are clearly divergent from other species previously, or even now, assigned to L. kuhlii from Mainland Southeast Asia. In both mtDNA and nuDNA phylogeny, the Malay Peninsula clade diverges into two lineages, one from north (Larut Hill, Perak, and Hulu Terengganu, Terengganu) and another from south (Genting Highlands, Pahang, and Gombak, Selangor). These lineages are separated by large genetic distances, comparable with those observed between some other species of L. kuhlii-like frogs. Although the two lineages are very similar morphologically, they are distinguishable in several morphological traits and are considered heterospecific. We therefore describe them as L. utara sp. nov. and L. selatan sp. nov. These new species differ from all other species of kuhlii-like frogs from Mainland Southeast Asia by the surface of tibia, which is densely covered by large warts.
We present a ternary blend-based bulk heterojunction ITO/PEDOT:PSS/PFO-DBT: MEH-PPV:PC71BM/LiF/Al photodetector. Enhanced optical absorption range of the active film has been achieved by blending two donor components viz. poly[2,7-(9,9-di-octyl-fluorene)-alt-4,7-bis(thiophen-2-yl)benzo-2,1,3-thiadiazole] (PFO-DBT) and poly(2-methoxy-5(2'-ethylhexyloxy) phenylenevinylene (MEH-PPV) along with an acceptor component, i.e., (6,6)-phenyl-C71 hexnoic acid methyl ester. The dependency of the generation rate of free charge carriers in the organic photodetector (OPD) on varied incident optical power density was investigated as a function of different reverse biasing voltages. The photocurrent showed significant enhancement as the intensity of light impinging on active area of OPD is increased. The ratio of Ilight to Idark of fabricated device at -3 V was ~3.5 × 10(4). The dynamic behaviour of the OPD under on/off switching irradiation revealed that sensor exhibits quick response and recovery time of ∼800 ms and 500 ms, respectively. Besides reliability and repeatability in the photoresponse characteristics, the cost-effective and eco-friendly fabrication is the added benefit of the fabricated OPD.
The purpose of this work is to remove Pb(II) from the aqueous solution using a type of hydrogel composite. A hydrogel composite consisting of waste linear low density polyethylene, acrylic acid, starch, and organo-montmorillonite was prepared through emulsion polymerization method. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Solid carbon nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (CNMR)), silicon(-29) nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (Si NMR)), and X-ray diffraction spectroscope ((XRD) were applied to characterize the hydrogel composite. The hydrogel composite was then employed as an adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II) from the aqueous solution. The Pb(II)-loaded hydrogel composite was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)), scanning electron microscopy (SEM)), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy ((XPS)). From XPS results, it was found that the carboxyl and hydroxyl groups of the hydrogel composite participated in the removal of Pb(II). Kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption of Pb(II) followed the pseudo-second-order equation. It was also found that the Langmuir model described the adsorption isotherm better than the Freundlich isotherm. The maximum removal capacity of the hydrogel composite for Pb(II) ions was 430mg/g. Thus, the waste linear low-density polyethylene-g-poly (acrylic acid)-co-starch/organo-montmorillonite hydrogel composite could be a promising Pb(II) adsorbent.
Meeting the oral health care needs of the growing population of people with special health care needs (SHCN) starts with dental students' acquisition of sound knowledge and development of clinical competence at the predoctoral level. The aim of this study was to review the level of undergraduate education in Special Needs Dentistry (SND) in Malaysian and Australian dental schools. The deans of all six Malaysian public dental schools and eight of nine Australian dental schools participated in a postal survey on current undergraduate didactic and clinical training in SND at their institutions. The results showed the number of dental schools in Malaysia with teaching in SND as a specific discipline was relatively low compared to that of Australia. However, a high percentage of Malaysian and Australian dental schools reported incorporating teaching of SND into pediatric dentistry (83.3 percent vs. 75 percent), oral medicine/oral pathology (66.7 percent vs. 75 percent), and oral surgery (66.7 percent vs. 25 percent). Most respondents said their school delivered SND clinical training in dental school clinics, hospital-based settings, and residential aged care facilities. Respondents in both countries viewed lack of faculty expertise as the greatest barrier to providing SND education. The study provides valuable information that can direct SND curriculum development in the two countries.
The purpose of this study was to determine when cuff re-tear commonly occurs in the postoperative period and to investigate the clinical factors that might predispose to an early cuff re-tear.
We extend the concept of relaxed α-monotonicity to mixed relaxed α-β-monotonicity. The concept of mixed relaxed α-β-monotonicity is more general than many existing concepts of monotonicities. Finally, we apply this concept and well known KKM-theory to obtain the solution of generalized equilibrium problem.
Adherence to antidepressant treatment is an essential step in the management of patients with major depressive disorder, and several factors can contribute to antidepressant nonadherence. Evidence supports the hypothesis that patient treatment satisfaction will result in improved adherence; therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between patient treatment satisfaction and adherence to antidepressants, and the role of patient beliefs toward medication in patient treatment satisfaction.
Magnetic field influence on unsteady free convection flow of a second grade fluid near an infinite vertical flat plate with ramped wall temperature embedded in a porous medium is studied. It has been observed that magnitude of velocity as well as skin friction in case of ramped temperature is quite less than the isothermal temperature. Some special cases namely: (i) second grade fluid in the absence of magnetic field and porous medium and (ii) Newtonian fluid in the presence of magnetic field and porous medium, performing the same motion are obtained. Finally, the influence of various parameters is graphically shown.
The poor capacity at cell boundaries is not enough to meet the growing demand and stringent design which required high capacity and throughput irrespective of user's location in the cellular network. In this paper, we propose new schemes for an optimum fixed relay node (RN) placement in LTE-A cellular network to enhance throughput and coverage extension at cell edge region. The proposed approach mitigates interferences between all nodes and ensures optimum utilization with the optimization of transmitted power. Moreover, we proposed a new algorithm to balance the transmitted power of moving relay node (MR) over cell size and providing required SNR and throughput at the users inside vehicle along with reducing the transmitted power consumption by MR. The numerical analysis along with the simulation results indicates that an improvement in capacity for users is 40% increment at downlink transmission from cell capacity. Furthermore, the results revealed that there is saving nearly 75% from transmitted power in MR after using proposed balancing algorithm. ATDI simulator was used to verify the numerical results, which deals with real digital cartographic and standard formats for terrain.
Multicriteria decision making (MCDM) is one of the methods that popularly has been used in solving personnel selection problem. Alternatives, criteria, and weights are some of the fundamental aspects in MCDM that need to be defined clearly in order to achieve a good result. Apart from these aspects, fuzzy data has to take into consideration that it may arise from unobtainable and incomplete information. In this paper, we propose a new approach for personnel selection problem. The proposed approach is based on Hamming distance method with subjective and objective weights (HDMSOW's). In case of vagueness situation, fuzzy set theory is then incorporated onto the HDMSOW's. To determine the objective weight for each attribute, the fuzzy Shannon's entropy is considered. While for the subjective weight, it is aggregated into a comparable scale. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the HDMSOW's.
An electrochemical cell using an organic compound, copper (II) phthalocyanine-tetrasulfonic acid tetrasodium salt (CuTsPc,) has been fabricated and investigated as a solution-based temperature sensor. The capacitance and resistance of the ITO/CuTsPc solution/ITO chemical cell has been characterized as a function of temperature in the temperature range of 25-80 °C. A linear response with minimal hysteresis is observed. The fabricated temperature sensor has shown high consistency and sensitive response towards a specific range of temperature values.
A compromised oral health condition amongst patients with special health care needs (SHCN) has been associated with the reluctance and shortage of skills of dental professionals in managing such patients. Lack of training and experience at the undergraduate level are reported barriers to the provision of care for this patient cohort. Undergraduate education therefore, plays an important role in producing professionals with the knowledge, skills and positive attitude in treating patients with SHCN. This study aims to determine the level of knowledge, comfort and attitudes of Malaysian undergraduate dental students towards caring for patients with SHCN, as well as their perception on education in this field. A self-administered questionnaire was administered in the classroom style to final year undergraduate dental students in Malaysian public dental schools. Most students were aware of Special Needs Dentistry (SND) as a specialty after being informed by academic staff. The majority of the students demonstrated poor knowledge in defining SND and felt uncomfortable providing care for such patients. They perceived their undergraduate training in SND as inadequate with most students agreeing that they should receive didactic and clinical training at undergraduate level. A high percentage of students also expressed interest in pursuing postgraduate education in this area of dentistry despite the lack of educational exposure during undergraduate years. The study supports a need for educational reform to formulate a curriculum that is more patient-centred, with earlier clinical exposure in various clinical settings for students to treat patients with special health care needs, applying the concept of holistic care in a variable clinical condition.
The advent of web-based applications and services has created such diverse and voluminous web log data stored in web servers, proxy servers, client machines, or organizational databases. This paper attempts to investigate the effect of temporal attribute in relational rule mining for web log data. We incorporated the characteristics of time in the rule mining process and analysed the effect of various temporal parameters. The rules generated from temporal relational rule mining are then compared against the rules generated from the classical rule mining approach such as the Apriori and FP-Growth algorithms. The results showed that by incorporating the temporal attribute via time, the number of rules generated is subsequently smaller but is comparable in terms of quality.
[Purpose] In earlier studies of driver distraction, researchers classified distraction into two levels (not distracted, and distracted). This study classified four levels of distraction (neutral, low, medium, high). [Subjects and Methods] Fifty Asian subjects (n=50, 43 males, 7 females), age range 20-35 years, who were free from any disease, participated in this study. Wireless EEG signals were recorded by 14 electrodes during four types of distraction stimuli (Global Position Systems (GPS), music player, short message service (SMS), and mental tasks). We derived the amplitude spectrum of three different frequency bands, theta, alpha, and beta of EEG. Then, based on fusion of discrete wavelet packet transforms and fast fourier transform yield, we extracted two features (power spectral density, spectral centroid frequency) of different wavelets (db4, db8, sym8, and coif5). Mean ± SD was calculated and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed. A fuzzy inference system classifier was applied to different wavelets using the two extracted features. [Results] The results indicate that the two features of sym8 posses highly significant discrimination across the four levels of distraction, and the best average accuracy achieved by the subtractive fuzzy classifier was 79.21% using the power spectral density feature extracted using the sym8 wavelet. [Conclusion] These findings suggest that EEG signals can be used to monitor distraction level intensity in order to alert drivers to high levels of distraction.
The essential oils from the leaves, pseudostems, rhizomes and fruits of Alpinia rafflesiana were isolated by hydrodistillation. The oils were analysed by capillary GC and GC-MS. The most abundant components in the leaf oil were trans-caryophyllene (32.61%), caryophyllene oxide (8.67%), (2E,6Z)-farnesol (4.91%) and alpha-terpineol (4.25%), while 1,8-cineole (32.25%), myrcene (13.63%), alpha-terpineol (9.90%) and trans-caryophyllene (9.80%) were the main constituents in the pseudostem oil. The rhizome constituted of tetracosane (42.61%), tau-cadinol (7.46%), alpha-terpineol (6.71%) were the major components, whereas tetracosane (13.39%), (2E,6E)-farnesol (7.31%), alpha-terpineol (8.51%) and caryophyllene oxide (8.05%) were the main components in the fruit oil. Antimicrobial assay revealed that all the essential oils showed moderate to weak inhibition against the tested microorganisms. The leaf oil was the most active and inhibited both S. aureus and E. coli with MIC values of 7.81 microg/mL and 15.6 microg/mL, respectively.
Duck meat is less utilized than other meats in processed products because of limitations of its functional properties, including lower water holding capacity, emulsion stability, and higher cooking loss compared with chicken meat. These limitations could be improved using surimi technology, which consists of washing and concentrating myofibrillar protein. In this study, surimi-like materials were made from duck meat using two or three washings with different solutions (tap water, sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and sodium phosphate buffer). Better improvement of the meat's functional properties was obtained with three washings versus two washings. Washing with tap water achieved the highest gel strength; moderate elevation of water holding capacity, pH, lightness, and whiteness; and left a small amount of fat. Washing with sodium bicarbonate solution generated the highest water holding capacity and pH and high lightness and whiteness values, but it resulted in the lowest gel strength. Processing duck meat into surimi-like material improves its functional properties, thereby making it possible to use duck meat in processed products.
Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic disorders affecting individuals of all ages. A greater understanding of pathogenesis in epilepsy will likely provide the basis fundamental for development of new antiepileptic therapies that aim to prevent the epileptogenesis process or modify the progression of epilepsy in addition to treatment of epilepsy symptomatically. Therefore, several investigations have embarked on advancing knowledge of the mechanism underlying epileptogenesis, understanding in mechanism of pharmacoresistance and discovering antiepileptogenic or disease-modifying therapy. Animal models play a crucial and significant role in providing additional insight into mechanism of epileptogenesis. With the help of these models, epileptogenesis process has been demonstrated to be involved in various molecular and biological pathways or processes. Hence, this article will discuss the known and postulated mechanisms of epileptogenesis and challenges in using the animal models.