Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are hazardous and persistent organic pollutants that usually exist at low concentrations in the environment. In this study, dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) technique coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD) was optimized for the analysis of selected PAHs, namely phenanthrene (PHE), fluoranthene (FLA) and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) in apple juice. Under the optimal extraction conditions (the mixture of 200 µL of acetone and 50 µL of 1-octanol was applied to extract the selected PAHs for 1 min), the DLLME-HPLC-FD showed excellent linearity over the concentration range of 5 to 200 µg/L for both PHE and FLA, and 0.01 to 5 µg/L for BaP with correlation coefficients, r ≥ 0.9956. The method offered ultra-trace detection of selected PAHs in the range of 0.002 to 0.5 µg/L, and negligible matrix effects in determining selected PAHs with relative recovery average within the range of 92.6 to 109.6% in apple juice. The advantages of applying this method for the extraction of PAHs include rapidity, simple operation, as well as small consumption of organic extraction solvent, which is beneficial for routine analysis.
Emotional Intelligence appears to be a significant influencing factor in academic achievements. This study aims to identify the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and mathematics achievements (a relatively sparse research areas of academic achievements) among undergraduates in higher learning institution of Sarawak. 100 respondents from a higher-level institution of Sarawak participated in this study. Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) is used to measure the trait emotional intelligence of the undergraduates. The result was analysed using descriptive analysis and inferential analysis, namely two-way ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation. Two-way ANOVA was used to test if there is significant difference in demographic attributes (gender and place of residence) towards maths achievements and trait emotional intelligence of the undergraduates. Pearson Correlation was used to test the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and mathematics achievements of the undergraduates. Generally, this study found that there is no significant difference for factors related to demographic attributes (gender and place of residence) against maths achievements and trait emotional intelligence of the undergraduates. Meanwhile, a relationship was found between trait emotional intelligence and mathematics achievements among undergraduates in higher learning institution in Sarawak. The outcome of the study appears to suggest that trait emotional intelligence can help undergraduates to understand themselves more and to control and manage their emotions and feelings and have better relationship with their surroundings. And this could positively impact on their maths achievements.
This study aims to explore gender, race, stress and sleep quality as factors which influence the academic performance of undergraduate students. The samples of study involved 80 students from the Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. Questionnaire used in the data collection comprising demographic information, stress questionnaire (Student Stress Inventory (SSI)) and sleep quality questionnaire (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)). The academic performance of the undergraduate students in this study was measured by their cumulative grade point average (CGPA). The result of the study showed that female students performed better than male students; whilst non-Bumiputera students performed better than Bumiputera students. The study also found that the higher the stress level of a student (SSI score), the lower his or her CGPA results. Moreover, the findings showed that there is a significant difference in FCSHD undergraduates’ academic performance based on their sleep quality, in which the mean of CGPA for students with good sleep quality is higher than that of students with bad sleep quality. Ultimately, the study reveals that gender and race do play a part in the academic performance of students and having good sleep quality and a little bit of stress is equally important in learning and helpful in attaining good grades and hence, should be leveraged by students.
This study examines the impact of tax on consumption behaviour by focusing on selected countries from Asia. The study adopts panel fixed effect and random estimators to gauge the influence of tax on consumption expenditures. Findings of the study support negative influence of tax on household consumption. The finding is parallel with the absolute income hypothesis that high volume of tax collected from the public results in falling households’ disposable incomes, hence downwardly affecting households’ consumption levels. The study’s finding implies the importance of carefully observing appropriate tax policy that suit the country’s level of development in promoting high rates of economic growth and consumption.
There is lacking technology application in black pepper farming to automate daily routine activities in monitoring black pepper vines growth and nutrient need. With the revolution of Industry 4.0 (IR4.0), and tremendous improvement in the internet of things (IoT), the application of precision agriculture to pepper farming is a thing to consider for its benefit. This paper to explore the use of IoT to monitor fertilizer requirement for pepper vines using pH sensor. The pH sensor attached to Raspberry Pi 3 will be collecting the data and forwarding it to the cloud database for farmer reference and take decision based on data presented in form of a digital report from the database. The Python environment provides the space for coding in Raspberry Pi. SQL and PHP software is used to design the user interface and data management in the relational database management system. The information about pH provides a better understanding of how pH parameter affects the growth of pepper vines. The farmer will be able to access the information anywhere and anytime. Therefore, our proposed system will greatly help the pepper farmers in Sarawak in managing the usage of fertilizer as a way to minimize farm inputs, thus increase their profit.
Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFA) have many health benefits to human. Increasing evidence have shown that climate change reduces the availability of plankton n-3 LC-PUFA to primary consumers which potentially reduces the availability of n-3 LC-PUFA to human. Since marine bivalves are an important source of n-3 LC-PUFA for human beings, and bivalve aquaculture completely depends on phytoplankton in ambient water as food, it is important to understand the impact of climate change on the lipid nutritional quality of bivalves. In this study, fatty acid profile of different bivalves (mussels, oysters, clams, scallops and cockles) from different regions (tropical, subtropical and temperate) and time (before 1990, 1991-1995, 1996-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, 2016-2020) were extracted from published literature to calculate various lipid nutritional quality indicators. The results of this study revealed that the effects of global warming and declines in aragonite saturation state on the lipid content and lipid indices of bivalves are highly dependent on the geographical region and bivalves. In general, global warming has the largest negative impact on the lipid content and indices of temperate bivalves, including decreasing the PUFA/SFA, EPA + DHA and n-3/n-6. However, global warming has a much smaller negative impact on lipid content and lipid indices in other regions. The declines of aragonite saturation state in seawater promotes the accumulation of lipid content in tropical and subtropical bivalves, but it compromised the PUFA/SFA, EPA + DHA and n-3/n-6 of bivalves in all regions. The findings of this study not only fill the knowledge gap of the impact of climate change on the lipid nutritional quality of bivalves, but also provide guidance for the establishment of bivalve aquaculture and fisheries management plans to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Melioidosis is an infectious disease caused by an aerobic, non-spore forming gram negative bacillus,
Burkholderia pseudomallei. It is known to be of high incidence in parts of rural South East Asia,
and in Northern Australia. Pneumonia is the commonest manifestation. We report here three cases of
neurological melioidosis from the registry of 169 cases of melioidosis in Bintulu Hospital, Sarawak,
East Malaysia, with a review of neurological melioidosis in the literature. The annual incidence of
melioidosis is estimated to be 8 per 100,000 populations in the Bintulu district. Neurological melioidosis
accounts for 1.8% of our melioidosis cases. A review of 76 cases of neurological melioidosis reported
in the literature inclusive of our 3 cases shows that localized brain or spinal inflammation or abscess
is the most common manifestation occurring in 80% of patients. Close to half (53%) have intra axial
abscess (brain or spinal cord), a quarter (27%) have extra axial lesions only (epidural or subdural
collection, osteomyelitis or scalp abscess), and another quarter (27%) have both intra and extra axial
lesions. Thus, B. pseudomallei appears to be unique among the bacterial central nervous system
infection to be able to affect the brain and its contiguous tissues, crossing the tissue plane particularly
resulting in osteomyelitis, scalp abscess and vice versa. Two thirds of the neurologicalmelioidosis
patients have only neurological disease with no evidence of disease elsewhere.
As reported by the World Health Organisation (2014), Malaysia is the fattest country among the Southeast Asia. Among others, obesity is a leading contributor of non-communicable diseases (e.g., type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cancer). This article aims to review the exiting weight management programmes targeting overweight and obesity in Malaysia from 2005 to 2015. The findings from this review could be useful for future intervention efforts in an attempt to address such issues in Malaysia.
Overweight and obesity have become a serious health issue in worldwide and Malaysia is no exception. In view that obesity is one of the leading causes of non-communicable diseases, this systematic review aimed to explore whether Malaysian are getting fatter (overweight or obesity) and rounder (abdominal obesity). Searches of the published literature were conducted using 3 databases including EMBASE, MEDLINE, and PubMed. These were limited to cross-sectional or cohort studies in Malaysia. The databases provided the prevalence of overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity among 15 years old and above Malaysian population from 2009 to 2015. In total, 47 articles were included in this review. Findings exhibit that the prevalence rates of overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity range from 9.5% to 43.5%, 1.77% to 26.4% and 11.4% to 57.4%, respectively. Overweight is more predominant among males. However, obesity and abdominal obesity are more predominant among females. This means that more females are getting fatter and “rounder” as compared to males in Malaysia. The findings imply a lack of intervention programmes based on proper randomized controlled trials which are needed to adequately address the problem of obesity in Malaysia.
Our earlier report showed that diet rich in calcium and sodium fed to guinea pigs can be urolithogenic. In this study, we investigated the effect of adding 3% or 15% cellulose as a source of fiber into similar diet to asses the formation of kidney calculus. From the result, animals fed diet with 3% cellulose showed a relatively high concentration of urinary oxalate, urate and large number of crystals in the kidneys. When the cellulose level was raised to 15%, the concentrations of urinary calcium, urate and the number of crystals formed in the kidneys were lowered. We therefore, conclude that high fiber diet may be beneficial in reducing the incidence of kidney stones of calcium origin.
Fibreoptic intubation has been established as a major advance in the management of difficult or failed intubation in the awake patient. If necessary, it may be performed under general anaesthesia with either spontaneous or controlled ventilation. This should be considered early in the management of failed intubation, before multiple attempts with other techniques lead to haemorrhage and oedema in the airway. We describe here selected case reports to illustrate this in 8 different situations. This is followed by a brief review of the technique and indications of fibreoptic intubation.
From January 1980 to August 1992, there were 125 deaths occurring in the operating theatre at the University Hospital Kuala Lumpur. Out of these 125, six were judged to have been mainly 'due to anaesthesia.' In the same time period, there were a total of 155,000 anaesthetics given in the hospital. This gives an anaesthetic death rate (in the operating theatre) of six out of 155,000 or 0.39:10,000.
Modern anaesthesia carries a definite although small risk. The risk from general and regional anaesthesia is reviewed, the causes explored, and preventive strategies discussed. Although anaesthesia may never be 100% safe, a knowledge of the risk and causes enables us to work towards this goal.
Algal have attracted attention from biomedical scientists as they are a valuable natural
source of secondary metabolites that exhibit antioxidant activities. In this study, singlefactor
experiments were conducted to investigate the best extraction conditions (ethanol
concentration, solid-to-solvent ratio, extraction temperature and extraction time) in extracting
antioxidant compounds and capacities from four species of seaweeds (Sargassum polycystum,
Eucheuma denticulatum , Kappaphycus alvarezzi variance Buaya and Kappaphycus alvarezzi
variance Giant) from Sabah. Total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC)
assays were used to determine the phenolic and flavonoid concentrations, respectively, while
2,2-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picylhydrazyl
(DPPH) radical scavenging capacity assays were used to evaluate the antioxidant capacities of
all seaweed extracts. Results showed that extraction parameters had significant effect (p < 0.05)
on the antioxidant compounds and antioxidant capacities of seaweed. Sargassum polycystum
portrayed the most antioxidant compounds (37.41 ± 0.01 mg GAE/g DW and 4.54 ± 0.02 mg
CE/g DW) and capacities (2.00 ± 0.01 μmol TEAC/g DW and 0.84 ± 0.01 μmol TEAC/g DW)
amongst four species of seaweed.
This study aimed to optimise potential extraction conditions using response surface methodology (RSM) for yielding maximum levels of total phenolic content (TPC) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH•) scavenging capacity of henna (Lawsonia inermis) stems. The ranges for selected independent variables, namely acetone concentration (20−90%, v/v), extraction time (10−90 min), and extraction temperature (25−45°C) were identified by screening tests. Optimum conditions obtained for extraction of TPC were 47.0% acetone, extraction time of 47.6 min and extraction temperature of 37.3oC. The result also showed that 75.8% acetone, extraction time of 26.2 min and extraction temperature of 41oC yielded the highest DPPH• scavenging capacity. The optimized extraction conditions have resulted in TPC and DPPH• scavenging capacity of 5232.4 mg GAE/100 g DW and 6085.7 mg TE/100 g DW, respectively which similar to the predicted values. Therefore, RSM has successfully optimized the extraction conditions for TPC and radical scavenging capacity of henna stems.
Introduction: In Malaysia, herbal medicines are used for variety of reasons including health promotion and home remedies during pregnancy and postpartum with Manjakani (Quercus infectoria) as one of the most commonly consumed herbs. Herbal medicines consumption had been linked to heavy metals contamination and transfer from mother to infant and may affect infant’s growth and development. This study aims to (i) determine Manjakani consumption among postpartum mothers, (ii) quantify its heavy metals level, namely lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium, and (iii) determine health risk associated with its consumption. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 106 postpartum mothers was carried out in Kuala Lumpur. Six samples of Manjakani were sampled and extracted using microwave digester and analysed using Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Non-carcinogenic health risks for herbal medicine consumption were calculated using Hazard Quotient (HQ). Results: Manjakani was consumed by 16% of mothers (n=17). Highest level of the metals was shown by chromium with mean concentration of 4210 ± 1910 ug/kg, followed by lead (170.8 ± 193.2), arsenic (39.3 ± 27.1) and cadmium (7.7 ± 0.76). There were no significant non-carcinogenic health risks with lead, arsenic, chromium and cadmium contamination (HQ < 1). Conclusion: Manjakani is consumed by mothers during confinement period. Heavy metals were quantified in Manjakani although no significant association was observed with socio-demographic characteristics and birth outcomes.
Introduction: Consumption of Chinese Herbal Medicine (CHMs) have escalated globally. They are preferred treat- ment for minor diseases or disorders. In Malaysia, CHMs are common home remedies during pregnancy and postpar- tum. Angelica sinensis (Danggui) is a staple CHMs during postpartum for purpose of nourishing blood and resolving stasis. Concerns are raised over possible heavy metals toxicity. Objective: This study aims to (i) determine Danggui consumption among postpartum mothers, (ii) quantify its heavy metals level, namely Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Ar- senic (As) and Chromium (Cr) and (iii) determine health risks of Danggui consumption among mothers. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 112 postpartum mothers was carried out in Kuala Lumpur. Danggui samples were collected from nine districts in Kuala Lumpur (Segambut, Seputeh, Cheras, Kepong, Bandar Tun Razak, Titiwangsa, Setiawangsa, Batu and Lembah Pantai). Heavy metals were extracted using microwave digester and analysed using Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS). Hazard Quotient (HQ) was used to determine non-carcino- genic health risks for herbal medicine consumption. Results: Danggui was consumed by 19.6% of mothers (n=22). Among them, incidence of jaundice was 63.6% and need for phototherapy was 40.9%. Heavy metals contamina- tions were found in the decreasing order of Cr > As > Pb > Cd with median (interquartile) of 3996.3 (2805.6) μg/ kg, 128.3 (56.7), 98.6 (99.1) and 37.0 (35.0) respectively. No non-carcinogenic health risks were found for all four metals. Conclusion: Alarming concentrations of heavy metals were quantified in Danggui warranting for further in- vestigation to safeguard health of postpartum mothers.
Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic studies have been undertaken to investigate the interactions among components in a system of hexanoyl chitosan-lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate (LiCF(3)SO(3))-diethyl carbonate (DEC)/ethylene carbonate (EC). LiCF(3)SO(3) interacts with the hexanoyl chitosan to form a hexanoyl chitosan-salt complex that results in the shifting of the N(COR)(2), CONHR and OCOR bands to lower wavenumbers. Interactions between EC and DEC with LiCF(3)SO(3) has been noted and discussed. Evidence of interaction between EC and DEC has been obtained experimentally. Studies on polymer-plasticizer spectra suggested that there is no interaction between the polymer host and plasticizers. Competition between plasticizer and polymer on associating with Li(+) ions was observed from the spectral data for gel polymer electrolytes. The obtained spectroscopic data has been correlated with the conductivity performance of hexanoyl chitosan-based polymer electrolytes.