Displaying publications 841 - 860 of 6769 in total

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  1. Mahmood A, Omar MN, Ngah N
    Asian Pac J Trop Med, 2012 Nov;5(11):882-6.
    PMID: 23146802 DOI: 10.1016/S1995-7645(12)60164-3
    OBJECTIVE: To investigate the potential of Musa x paradisiaca (M. x paradisiaca) flower extracts in promoting milk production of lactating rats and its effects on growth of the suckling pups.

    METHODS: Galactagogue activity was evaluated in terms of quantity of milk produced from the rats treated with petroleum ether, ethanol or water extracts of the flower. Lactating rats (n = 5) of Spraque Dawley with six pups each were administered with the extracts in the amount of 500 mg/kg body weight, while the control rats were given an equivalent amount of distilled water. The rats were daily administered via oral feeding starting from Day 5 until Day 14 and the performance of milk production was measured along the experimental period by weight-suckle-weight method. Results were statistically analyzed using SPSS by means of ANOVA at 0.05 and was expressed as their mean?standard deviation. The rates of pups' growth were measured as the weight gain along the experimental period.

    RESULTS: The rats treated with aqueous extract produced higher milk than control and ethanol groups. Aqueous extract was identified to increase milk production by 25%, while petroleum ether extract by 18%. The mean of yields produced by the rats during suckling period for aqueous, petroleum ether, ethanol and control were 4.62±2.45, 4.37±1.93, 3.65±1.89 and 3.69±1.79, respectively. Growth rates of pups for the rats treated with control, aqueous, ethanol extract and petroleum ether were (1.85±0.49), (1.78±0.56), (1.65±0.46) and (1.56±0.42) g/pup, respectively.

    CONCLUSIONS: The present study reveals the potential of M. x paradisiaca flower to enhance milk production of nursing mothers which could be exploited for commercialization of the isolated extract.

  2. Hassan M, Sulaiman MH, Lian CJ
    Acta Trop, 2013 May;126(2):142-5.
    PMID: 23416121 DOI: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2013.02.001
    A parasitological survey of 16 pangolins, confiscated from the Department of Wildlife and Nature Park Peninsular Malaysia (DWNP) at Kelantan and Pulau Pinang, Malaysia was conducted in 2011. Amblyomma javanense (family: Ixodidae) was the only ectoparasite found on the pangolins. The prevalence, intensity and life cycle of A. javanense were observed together with the respective pangolins' age and sex. It was found that 68.8% of the pangolins were infected, and significant difference, χ(2)(1, N=16)=4.02, p=0.05 were observed with males higher in infestation (88.9%) as compared to the females (42.9%). However, the mean intensity was higher on females (72) as compared to males (31.6). In addition, significant difference, χ(2) (2, N=16)=6.73, p=0.05 was recorded between adults and juveniles with juveniles found to be 100% infected as compared to adult (63.6%). Nevertheless, the mean intensity was slightly higher on adults (47) than juveniles (35). Adult ticks were found in higher numbers as compared to the nymph and larvae with number of male ticks higher (236) as compared to the females (53). Similarly, a high significant difference χ(2)(2, N=469)=203.47, p=0.05 was recorded in the composition of the tick's life stages with a higher number of adult ticks (61.6%) followed by nymph (30.3%) and larvae (8.1%). As such, the results of this study revealed a picture of the A. javanense life cycle which is related to the age and gender of the Malayan Pangolin.
  3. Abed SA, Sirat HM, Taher M
    EXCLI J, 2013;12:404-12.
    PMID: 26600731
    The antioxidant activity and the total phenolic content, as well as the influence of petroleum ether, chloroform and methanol extracts from the leaves of Gynotroches axillaris, on microorganisms were studied. The total phenolic contents were evaluated by using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and the obtained values ranged from 70.0 to 620 mg GAE/g. The efficiency of antioxidation, which was identified through the scavenging of free radical DPPH, exhibited that the highest IC50 was in the methanolic extract (44.7 µg/mL) as compared to the standard ascorbic acid (25.83 µg/mL) and to standard BHT (17.2 µg/mL). In vitro antimicrobial activity of extracts was tested against Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria and fungi. Methanol extract showed activity in the range (225-900 μg/mL) with both types, while petroleum ether and chloroform extracts were only active with Bacillus subtilis. The three extracts strongly inhibited all fungi with activity 225-450 μg/mL. The toxicity test against brine shrimps indicated that all extracts were non-toxic with LC50 value more than 1000 µg/mL. The finding of this study supports the safety of these extracts to be used in medical treatments.
  4. Ismail H, Shamsudin R, Abdul Hamid MA
    Mater Sci Eng C Mater Biol Appl, 2016 Jan 1;58:1077-81.
    PMID: 26478406 DOI: 10.1016/j.msec.2015.09.030
    β-wollastonite (β-CaSiO3) was synthesized from rice husk ash and calcium carbonate, and a study of the effects of the autoclaving and sintering steps is presented here. Autoclaving and sintering at 8h and 2h yielded the β-wollastonite phase in full, with improved crystallinity. Nucleation between rice husk ash and calcium oxide occurred around 135 °C, pressure 0.24 MPa, and growth proved to be more crystalline after the ripening period. For shorter processing times, and for both unsintered and unautoclaved samples, cristobalite and unstable tricalcium silicate phases were present. Crystallite size was increased by longer sintering times but reduced by longer autoclaving times. The β-wollastonite obtained had a random branch-like structure. In conclusion, the introduction of the autoclaving step successfully obtained β-wollastonite from a reaction between rice husk ash and calcium oxide.
  5. Imran S, Taha M, Ismail NH
    Curr Med Chem, 2015;22(38):4412-33.
    PMID: 26438249
    Bisindolylmethane and its derivatives are pharmacologically active and applicable in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry. Bisindolylmethanes have a variety of biological activities such as antihyperglycemic, antiinflammatory, antibacterial, anticancer, and antileishmanial activities, including enzyme inhibition activity. They play a crucial role in many diseases especially anticancer activity. Modifying their structure had proven to be useful in the search of new therapeutic agents. Extensive research carried out on bisindolylmethane and its derivatives shows that they are pharmacologically significant. The present review focuses on the pharmacological profile of bisindolylmethane derivatives. This review includes the current literature with an update of research findings as well as the perspectives that they hold for future research.
  6. Lieu T, Yusup S, Moniruzzaman M
    Bioresour Technol, 2016 Jul;211:248-56.
    PMID: 27019128 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2016.03.105
    Recently, a great attention has been paid to advanced microwave technology that can be used to markedly enhance the biodiesel production process. Ceiba pentandra Seed Oil containing high free fatty acids (FFA) was utilized as a non-edible feedstock for biodiesel production. Microwave-assisted esterification pretreatment was conducted to reduce the FFA content for promoting a high-quality product in the next step. At optimum condition, the conversion was achieved 94.43% using 2wt% of sulfuric acid as catalyst where as 20.83% conversion was attained without catalyst. The kinetics of this esterification reaction was also studied to determine the influence of factors on the rate of reaction and reaction mechanisms. The results indicated that microwave-assisted esterification was of endothermic second-order reaction with the activation energy of 53.717kJ/mol.
  7. Karim A, Salleh R, Khan MK
    PLoS One, 2016;11(3):e0150077.
    PMID: 26978523 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150077
    Botnet phenomenon in smartphones is evolving with the proliferation in mobile phone technologies after leaving imperative impact on personal computers. It refers to the network of computers, laptops, mobile devices or tablets which is remotely controlled by the cybercriminals to initiate various distributed coordinated attacks including spam emails, ad-click fraud, Bitcoin mining, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), disseminating other malwares and much more. Likewise traditional PC based botnet, Mobile botnets have the same operational impact except the target audience is particular to smartphone users. Therefore, it is import to uncover this security issue prior to its widespread adaptation. We propose SMARTbot, a novel dynamic analysis framework augmented with machine learning techniques to automatically detect botnet binaries from malicious corpus. SMARTbot is a component based off-device behavioral analysis framework which can generate mobile botnet learning model by inducing Artificial Neural Networks' back-propagation method. Moreover, this framework can detect mobile botnet binaries with remarkable accuracy even in case of obfuscated program code. The results conclude that, a classifier model based on simple logistic regression outperform other machine learning classifier for botnet apps' detection, i.e 99.49% accuracy is achieved. Further, from manual inspection of botnet dataset we have extracted interesting trends in those applications. As an outcome of this research, a mobile botnet dataset is devised which will become the benchmark for future studies.
  8. Mohd Nor NS, Jalaludin MY
    PMID: 27257411 DOI: 10.1186/s13633-016-0029-3
    BACKGROUND: 47 XXY/46 XX mosaicism with characteristics suggesting Klinefelter syndrome is very rare and at present, only seven cases have been reported in the literature.

    CASE PRESENTATION: We report an Indian boy diagnosed as variant of Klinefelter syndrome with 47 XXY/46 XX mosaicism at age 12 years. He was noted to have right cryptorchidism and chordae at birth, but did not have surgery for these until age 3 years. During surgery, the right gonad was atrophic and removed. Histology revealed atrophic ovarian tissue. Pelvic ultrasound showed no Mullerian structures. There was however no clinical follow up and he was raised as a boy. At 12 years old he was re-evaluated because of parental concern about his 'female' body habitus. He was slightly overweight, had eunuchoid body habitus with mild gynaecomastia. The right scrotal sac was empty and a 2mls testis was present in the left scrotum. Penile length was 5.2 cm and width 2.0 cm. There was absent pubic or axillary hair. Pronation and supination of his upper limbs were reduced and x-ray of both elbow joints revealed bilateral radioulnar synostosis. The baseline laboratory data were LH

  9. Wan Daud WR, Djuned FM
    Carbohydr Polym, 2015 Nov 5;132:252-60.
    PMID: 26256348 DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2015.06.011
    Acetone soluble oil palm empty fruit bunch cellulose acetate (OPEFB-CA) of DS 2.52 has been successfully synthesized in a one-step heterogeneous acetylation of OPEFB cellulose without necessitating the hydrolysis stage. This has only been made possible by the mathematical modeling of the acetylation process by manipulating the variables of reaction time and acetic anhydride/cellulose ratio (RR). The obtained model was verified by experimental data with an error of less than 2.5%. NMR analysis showed that the distribution of the acetyl moiety among the three OH groups of cellulose indicates a preference at the C6 position, followed by C3 and C2. XRD revealed that OPEFB-CA is highly amorphous with a degree of crystallinity estimated to be ca. 6.41% as determined from DSC. The OPEFB-CA films exhibited good mechanical properties being their tensile strength and Young's modulus higher than those of the commercial CA.
  10. Tan WL, Yihui G, Abu Hassan MR
    Epidemiol Health, 2015;37:e2015032.
    PMID: 26212507 DOI: 10.4178/epih/e2015032
    OBJECTIVES: This study explored the demographic characteristics of hepatitis C patients in the Kota Setar (KS) district, Kedah, Malaysia, the prevalence of intravenous drug use (IVDU) as a risk factor among these patients, and the associations between IVDU and demographic characteristics.

    METHODS: Retrospective data pertaining to 713 patients from January 2009 to December 2013 were retrieved from hospital and disease notification records for analysis. The risk factors for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were grouped into IVDU and non-IVDU risk factors for analysis using multiple logistic regression.

    RESULTS: Of the hepatitis C patients included in this study, the most common age group was 31 to 40 years (30.2%), and male patients (91.2%) made up the overwhelming majority. Ethnic Malays constituted approximately 80.4% of the patients, and IVDU was the main risk factor (77.8%) for HCV infection. Multiple logistic regression showed that male patients were 59 times more likely to have IVDU as a risk factor for HCV infection. Single patients were 2.5 times more likely to have IVDU as a risk factor. Patients aged ≥71 years were much less likely than patients aged ≤30 years to have IVDU as a risk factor for HCV infection.

    CONCLUSIONS: IVDU was found to be an important risk factor for HCV infection among patients in the KS district. The factors associated with IVDU included age, sex, and marital status. Appropriate preventive measures should be developed to target the groups in which IVDU is most likely to be a risk factor for HCV infection.

  11. Rehman MA, Yusoff I, Alias Y
    J Hazard Mater, 2015 Dec 15;299:316-24.
    PMID: 26143194 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2015.06.030
    A series of doped and un-doped magnetic adsorbents CuCexFe2-xO4 (x=0.0-0.5) for fluoride were prepared with the micro-emulsion method. Fluoride adsorption was optimized for solution pH, temperature, contact time, and initial concentration and was monitored via normal phase ion chromatography (IC). The effect of concomitant anions was also explored to perform and simulate competitive fluoride adsorption in real water samples. Optimal adsorption was discovered by a simple quadratic model based on central composite design (CCD) and the response surface method (RSM). The adsorption, electrochemical and magnetic properties were compared between doped and un-doped ferrites. Doped ferrites (x=0.1-0.5) were found to be superior to un-doped ferrites (x=0) regarding the active sites, functional groups and fluoride adsorption. The characterization, optimization and application results of the doped ferrites indicated enhanced fluoride adsorption and easy separation with a simple magnet.
  12. Siddiqui MF, Reza AW, Kanesan J
    PLoS One, 2015;10(8):e0135875.
    PMID: 26280918 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0135875
    A wide interest has been observed in the medical health care applications that interpret neuroimaging scans by machine learning systems. This research proposes an intelligent, automatic, accurate, and robust classification technique to classify the human brain magnetic resonance image (MRI) as normal or abnormal, to cater down the human error during identifying the diseases in brain MRIs. In this study, fast discrete wavelet transform (DWT), principal component analysis (PCA), and least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) are used as basic components. Firstly, fast DWT is employed to extract the salient features of brain MRI, followed by PCA, which reduces the dimensions of the features. These reduced feature vectors also shrink the memory storage consumption by 99.5%. At last, an advanced classification technique based on LS-SVM is applied to brain MR image classification using reduced features. For improving the efficiency, LS-SVM is used with non-linear radial basis function (RBF) kernel. The proposed algorithm intelligently determines the optimized values of the hyper-parameters of the RBF kernel and also applied k-fold stratified cross validation to enhance the generalization of the system. The method was tested by 340 patients' benchmark datasets of T1-weighted and T2-weighted scans. From the analysis of experimental results and performance comparisons, it is observed that the proposed medical decision support system outperformed all other modern classifiers and achieves 100% accuracy rate (specificity/sensitivity 100%/100%). Furthermore, in terms of computation time, the proposed technique is significantly faster than the recent well-known methods, and it improves the efficiency by 71%, 3%, and 4% on feature extraction stage, feature reduction stage, and classification stage, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed well-trained machine learning system has the potential to make accurate predictions about brain abnormalities from the individual subjects, therefore, it can be used as a significant tool in clinical practice.
  13. Umar M, Aziz HA, Yusoff MS
    Water Environ Res, 2015 Mar;87(3):223-6.
    PMID: 25842532
    Leachate collected from the collection ponds of four landfill sites was investigated and compared for total coliforms and E. coli concentration as representatives of fecal pollution. Concentration of total coliforms and E. coli was comparable for leachate obtained from Kulim Landfill Site (KLS) and Ampang Landfill Site (ALS) with little variations. However, the level of indicator bacteria was significantly lower for Kuala Sepetang Landfill Site (KSLS), whereas Pulau Burung Landfill Site (PBLS) had the lowest concentration for both total coliforms and E. coli. Considering the landfills are currently operational, with the exception of ALS, the presence of indicator bacteria implies their inactivation prior to discharge. High concentration of indicator bacteria in ALS is attributed to the run-off entering the leachate pond. Greater concentration of ammonia and salinity level were partly responsible for lower concentration of indicator bacteria in leachate from KSLS and PBLS, indicating that salinty and ammonia could significantly affect the survival of indicator bacteria.
  14. Haji Muhammad Ismail Hussain I, Loh WF, Sofiah A
    Brain Dev, 1999 Jun;21(4):229-35.
    PMID: 10392744
    In a cross-sectional study of 24 Oriental children with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with a mean age of 11.25 years, 75% were found to have clinical and neurophysiological evidence of cerebral lupus. Seizures were the most common manifestation affecting 11 (61%) of the cases, followed by psychosis in five (27.7%), encephalopathy in five (27.7%), headaches in five (27.7%), personality changes in four (22.2%), stroke in three (16.6%), movement disorders in three (16.6%) and myelitis in one child (5.5%). Four children had cerebral lupus as the presenting manifestation of SLE. Twenty-one children had an electroencephalogram (EEG) of which 11 were normal. Abnormalities detected in the rest included focal sharps, slowing of background and electrodecremental changes. There was a poor correlation of EEG with the clinical presentation. Sixteen children with cerebral lupus had a computed tomogram (CT) of which three were normal. The commonest abnormality was cerebral atrophy with or without infarcts. Only four of the cases had lupus anticoagulant but compliment was reduced in 13. Sixteen of the cases also had renal involvement. Treatment was generally with steroids with only two patients receiving cyclophosphamide for cerebral relapse. Eight children (44%) made a full recovery. Learning disability was the most frequent sequelae affecting one-third of children seen at a 1-year follow up. Four (22%) had epilepsy, two (11%) had motor deficits and one child had optic atrophy. One child died of cerebral haemorrhage during a hypertensive crisis.
  15. Lim YH, Ng SP, Jamil MA
    J Obstet Gynaecol Res, 2003 Dec;29(6):399-401.
    PMID: 14641689 DOI: 10.1111/j.1341-8076.2003.00136.x
    Imperforate hymen is an uncommon obstructive anomaly of the female reproductive tract, which usually presents with intermittent and cyclical abdominal pain. Although it is usually sporadic, four cases of familial occurrence of imperforate hymen have been reported so far. Imperforate hymen is seldom associated with complications if it is detected early. In view of the possible familial occurrence, it is important to have a high index of suspicion in women who present with imperforate hymen. A detailed menstrual history of other female family members is necessary to enable early detection.
  16. Ruzmi R, Ahmad-Hamdani MS, Mazlan N
    PLoS One, 2020;15(9):e0227397.
    PMID: 32925921 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227397
    The continuous and sole dependence on imidazolinone (IMI) herbicides for weedy rice control has led to the evolution of herbicide resistance in weedy rice populations across various countries growing IMI herbicide-resistant rice (IMI-rice), including Malaysia. A comprehensive study was conducted to elucidate occurrence, level, and mechanisms endowing resistance to IMI herbicides in putative resistant (R) weedy rice populations collected from three local Malaysian IMI-rice fields. Seed bioassay and whole-plant dose-response experiments were conducted using commercial IMI herbicides. Based on the resistance index (RI) quantification in both experiments, the cross-resistance pattern of R and susceptible (S) weedy rice populations and control rice varieties (IMI-rice variety MR220CL2 and non-IMI-rice variety MR219) to imazapic and imazapyr was determined. A molecular investigation was carried out by comparing the acetohydroxyacid synthase (AHAS) gene sequences of the R and S populations and the MR220CL2 and MR219 varieties. The AHAS gene sequences of R weedy rice were identical to those of MR220CL2, exhibiting a Ser-653-Asn substitution, which was absent in MR219 and S plants. In vitro assays were conducted using analytical grade IMI herbicides of imazapic (99.3%) and imazapyr (99.6%) at seven different concentrations. The results demonstrated that the AHAS enzyme extracted from the R populations and MR220CL2 was less sensitive to IMI herbicides than that from S and MR219, further supporting that IMI herbicide resistance was conferred by target-site mutation. In conclusion, IMI resistance in the selected populations of Malaysian weedy rice could be attributed to a Ser-653-Asn mutation that reduced the sensitivity of the target site to IMI herbicides. To our knowledge, this study is the first to show the resistance mechanism in weedy rice from Malaysian rice fields.
  17. Zandi G, Shahzad I, Farrukh M, Kot S
    PMID: 33138254 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17217961
    Measurement of job stress and employees' commitment are few of the admired topics in the corporate world amongst business writers. With a principal aim to trial the blow of exposure to COVID-19 patients on doctors' job stress and commitment, in Pakistan; data have been collected through 7-10 min telephonic interview from voluntary participants and a sample of 129 responses were analyzed by Structure Equation Modeling-Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) path modeling through Smart PLS 3.2. The results of the study indicated; direct positive & significant impact of Extent of Exposure on Job Stress while direct negative, significant association with Commitment. Job Stress also observed having direct negative impact on commitment. The Extent of Exposure-Job Stress relationship was also found stronger among group of doctors having Low level of Perceived Organizational Support and weaker among group of doctors having High level of Perceive Organizational support. Perceived Organizational Support showed a moderating effect on the Extent of Exposure-Job Stress relationship; while, Social Support showed no moderation. Researchers are required to investigate more and management of the medical services providers (both hospitals and government) needs to focus on doctors' perception about Organizational Support, as doctors show no concern about the support from society as long as their well-being is cared for by respective hospitals. This study is an effort to stimulate more empirical evidence towards the treating and handling of COVID-19 patients and the psychological well-being of doctors.
  18. Kim YJ, Qian L, Aslam MS
    JMIR Res Protoc, 2020 Nov 20;9(11):e23112.
    PMID: 33216000 DOI: 10.2196/23112
    BACKGROUND: Workplace cyberbullying harms the psychological and social functioning of professionals working in an organization and may decrease the productivity and efficiency of daily life tasks. A recent study on trainee doctors across 8 different United Kingdom National Health Service trusts found health issues and job dissatisfaction in people who have experienced workplace cyberbullying. This disabling effect is even more noticeable in low-socioeconomic communities within low-income countries. In Malaysia, there is a need to create a personalized mobile mental health intervention program for health care professionals. These programs should be directed to prevent and decrease psychosocial issues and enhance coordination among health care professionals to solve health issues in the community.

    OBJECTIVE: Our main objective is to study the pre-effects and posteffects of the Personalized Mobile Mental Health Intervention (PMMH-I) for workplace cyberbullying in public and private hospitals in Malaysia.

    METHODS: A hospital-based multimethod multi-analytic evidential approach is proposed, involving social and psychological health informatics. The project has been subdivided into 3 stages, starting with Phase 1, a prevalence study, followed by exploratory studies. Phase 2 consists of a quasi-experimental design, whereas the development of a prototype and their testing will be proposed in Phase 3. Each stage includes the use of quantitative and qualitative methods (mixed-method program), using SPSS (version 26.0; IBM Corp) and Stata (version 16.1; StataCorp) as tools for quantitative research, and NVivo (version 1.0; QSR International) and Atlas.ti (version 9.0.16; ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH) for qualitative research.

    RESULTS: The results of this study will determine the pre- and posteffectiveness of an integrated PMMH-I for health care professionals. The prototype system platform will be developed and implemented in a public and private hospital. Results from Phase 1 will be published in 2021, followed by the implementation of Phase 2 in subsequent years.

    CONCLUSIONS: This study will provide evidence and guidance regarding the implementation of a personalized mobile mental health intervention for health care professionals into routine public and private hospitals to enhance communication and resolve conflicts.

    INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/23112.

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