PIP: A model of the determinants of child quality and of the value of a woman's time is developed and tested using data from the Malaysian Family Life Survey of 1976-1977. Child quality is measured by educational attainment; factors influencing the value of the mother's time include size and age composition of household, family income, education, and hours worked. The results indicate that size and age composition of household affect a woman's asking wage. However, more data are needed before the effects of family structure on schooling can be measured with confidence.
Matched MeSH terms: Population; Population Characteristics; Population Dynamics
"The past 20 years have seen extensive elaboration, refinement, and application of the original Brass method for estimating infant and child mortality from child survivorship data. This experience has confirmed the overall usefulness of the methods beyond question, but it has also shown that...estimates must be analyzed in relation to other relevant information before useful conclusions about the level and trend of mortality can be drawn.... This article aims to illustrate the importance of data analysis through a series of examples, including data for the Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak, Mexico, Thailand, and Indonesia. Specific maneuvers include plotting completed parity distributions and 'time-plotting' mean numbers of children ever born from successive censuses. A substantive conclusion of general interest is that data for older women are not so widely defective as generally supposed."
Matched MeSH terms: Population; Population Characteristics; Population Dynamics
"A tentative approximation of the expectation of life at 60-65 years, for populations with defective demographic statistics, is explored and expounded on the basis of a recent Horiuchi and [Coale] paper." The method is applied to data for El Salvador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Peninsular Malaysia, and it is shown that the method can be used on actual data, although it requires some drastic rounding off. (summary in ENG, FRE)
Matched MeSH terms: Population; Population Characteristics; Population Dynamics
PIP: The influence of socioeconomic status (ethnicity, income and parity) on electrolyte composition (sodium and potassium) in human milk is little known. We have thus quantitatively analyzed approximately 700 samples of milk (1-90 days postpartum) obtained from healthy Malaysian mothers' (Malay, Chinese and Indians) of full term infants. Results show that the mean concentration (mmol/l) of sodium is highest (48.2+or-1.7, Mean+or-SEM) in the Malaysian mothers' colostrum and this value decreased by 30% in their transitional milk and remained constant throughout subsequent days of lactation (mature milk). Ethnically, it is found that the level of sodium in colostrum of Malay and Chinese mothers were similar while the Indian mothers' colostrum showed apparently higher value (52.7+or-3.4 mmol/l) that is statistically insignificant. The transitional milk of all 3 ethnic groups studied exhibited similar levels of sodium. On subsequent days of lactation (mature milk) the Malay mothers exhibited lowest concentration (25.9+or-2.6 mmol/l) of sodium that is significantly (P0.05) different from that of Chinese and Indian mothers. Income and parity do not significantly affect the sodium level in Malaysian mothers' milk during all stages of lactation studied. The level of potassium, however did not change significantly with days of lactation. Like sodium, potassium too was not influenced by income and parity. (Author's).
Matched MeSH terms: Population; Population Characteristics; Population Dynamics
The effects of logging and recovery process on avian richness and diversity was compared in recently logged and thirty year post-harvested hill dipterocarp tropical rainforest, using mist-netting method. Atotal of 803 bird individuals representing 86 bird species and 29 families (i.e., 37.90% from recently logged forest and 62.10% from thirty year post-harvested forest) were captured from October 2010 to September, 2012. Twenty one bird species were commonly captured from both types of forests, 37 bird species were caught only in thirty year post-harvested forest and 28 bird species were caught only from recently logged forest. Arachnothera longirostra--Little Spiderhunter, Malacopteron magnum--Rufous-crowned Babbler, Alophoixus phaeocephalus -Yellow-bellied Bulbul and Meiglyptes tukki--Buff-necked Woodpecker were the most abundant four bird species in the thirty year post-harvested forest. On the contrary, seven bird species, i.e., Trichastoma rostratum - White-chested Babbler, Lacedo pulchella - Banded Kingfisher, Picus miniaceus--Banded Woodpecker, Enicurus ruficapillus - Chestnut-naped Forktail, Anthreptes simplex--Plain Sunbird, Muscicapella hodgsoni--Pygmy Blue Flycatcher and Otus rufescens--Reddish Scope Owl were considered as the rarest (i.e., each represented only 0.12%). Likewise, A. longirostra, Pycnonotus eythropthalmos - Spectacled Bulbul, P. simplex--Cream-vented Bulbul and Merops viridis--Blue-throated Bee-eater were the most dominant and Copsychus malabaricus--White-rumped Shama Eurylaimus javanicus--Banded Broadbill /xos malaccensis - Streaked Bulbul and Harpactes diardii--Diard's Trogon (each 0.12%) were the rarest bird species in recently logged forest. CAP analysis indicated that avian species in thirty year post-harvested forest were more diverse and evenly distributed than recently logged forest. However, recently logged forest was rich in bird species than thirty year post- harvested forest. The results revealed that logging and retrieval process affect bird species richness and diversity. However, bird species may respond differently from habitat to habitat, i.e., forest logging causes disturbance of some avian species while recovery process may replace the loss of vegetation and harbour a wide array of avian species richness and diversity.
The term "co-benefits" refers to positive outcomes accruing from a policy beyond the intended outcome, often or usually in other sectors. In the urban context, policies implemented in particular sectors (such as transport, energy or waste) often generate multiple co-benefits in other areas. Such benefits may be related to the reduction of local or global environmental impacts and also extend into the area of public health. A key to identifying and realising co-benefits is the adoption of systems approaches to understand inter-sectoral linkages and, in particular, the translation of this understanding to improved sector-specific and city governance. This paper reviews a range of policies which can yield health and climate co-benefits across different urban sectors and illustrates, through a series of cases, how taking a systems approach can lead to innovations in urban governance which aid the development of healthy and sustainable cities.
Dengue is life-threatening and the paediatric population is highly susceptible to complications. Deterioration can occur rapidly and ability to recognise early warning signs is crucial. This study aims to determine the knowledge and awareness of parents and carers and to predict their ability in recognising life-threatening symptoms and signs of dengue in children and to assess their health-seeking behaviour in dengue emergency. Methods This is a crosssectional study involving parents and carers of children ≤ 12 years old in schools and kindergartens in the Gombak district. Demographic details, knowledge on life-threatening symptoms and signs of dengue and health-seeking behaviour were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and knowledge scoring was done. The questionnaire was pilot tested with a Cronbach alpha of 0.82. The results were analysed using SPSS version 20.0. Results Total respondents were 866 with 44.8% men and 55.2% women. The mean age was 40.3 years (SD ± 5.7). Knowledge score of dengue life threatening features among respondents were good (30.0%) to average (56.8%). Respondents were able to recognise fever (98.5%), petechial rash (97.1%) and bleeding (65.2%) but were less able to recognise abdominal pain (22.3%) and passing less urine (28.2%) as life threatening dengue features. However, the ability to recognise fever is a poor predictor in recognising life threatening dengue in children compared to all other symptoms which were good predictors. A respondent that recognise stomach pain or neck stiffness were five times more likely to recognise life-threatening dengue. Respondents preferred to bring their children to the clinic (50.8%) or hospital (37.8%) themselves Instead of calling for ambulance. Worryingly, some would give antipyretics (3.6%) or wait for improvements (7.8%). Conclusion Concerted efforts by the schools, healthcare professionals and health authorities are required to educate parents and carers to identify life-threatening features of dengue and to improve their health seeking-behaviour.
Life-history variables for three incidentally captured species of seahorse (Kellogg's seahorse Hippocampus kelloggi, the hedgehog seahorse Hippocampus spinosissimus and the three-spot seahorse Hippocampus trimaculatus) were established using specimens obtained from 33 fisheries landing sites in Peninsular Malaysia. When samples were pooled by species across the peninsula, sex ratios were not significantly different from unity, and height and mass relationships were significant for all species. For two of these species, height at physical maturity (HM ) was smaller than the height at which reproductive activity (HR ) commenced: H. spinosissimus (HM = 99·6 mm, HR = 123·2 mm) and H. trimaculatus (HM = 90·5 mm, HR = 121·8 mm). For H. kelloggi, HM could not be estimated as all individuals were physically mature, while HR = 167·4 mm. It appears that all three Hippocampus spp. were, on average, caught before reproducing; height at 50% capture (HC ) was ≥HM but ≤HR . The results from this study probe the effectiveness of assessment techniques for data-poor fisheries that rely heavily on estimates of length at maturity, especially if maturity is poorly defined. Findings also question the sustainability of H. trimaculatus catches in the south-west region of Peninsular Malaysia, where landed specimens had a notably smaller mean height (86·2 mm) and markedly skewed sex ratio (6% males) compared with samples from the south-east and north-west of the peninsula.
Chiloscyllium, commonly called bamboo shark, can be found inhabiting the waters of the Indo-West Pacific around East Asian countries such as Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has categorized them as nearly threatened sharks out of their declining population status due to overexploitation. A molecular study was carried out to portray the systematic relationships within Chiloscyllium species using 12S rRNA and cytochrome b gene sequences. Maximum parsimony and Bayesian were used to reconstruct their phylogeny trees. A total of 381 bp sequences' lengths were successfully aligned in the 12S rRNA region, with 41 bp sites being parsimony-informative. In the cytochrome b region, a total of 1120 bp sites were aligned, with 352 parsimony-informative characters. All analyses yield phylogeny trees on which C. indicum has close relationships with C. plagiosum. C. punctatum is sister taxon to both C. indicum and C. plagiosum while C. griseum and C. hasseltii formed their own clade as sister taxa. These Chiloscyllium classifications can be supported by some morphological characters (lateral dermal ridges on the body, coloring patterns, and appearance of hypobranchials and basibranchial plate) that can clearly be used to differentiate each species.
The objectives of this research are to conceptualize the Bicycle Safety Index (BSI) that considers all parts of the street and to propose a universal guideline with microscale details.
The Sumatran orangutan is currently listed by the IUCN as critically endangered and the Bornean species as endangered. Unless effective conservation measures are enacted quickly, most orangutan populations without adequate protection face a dire future. Two main strategies are being pursued to conserve orangutans: (i) rehabilitation and reintroduction of ex-captive or displaced individuals; and (ii) protection of their forest habitat to abate threats like deforestation and hunting. These strategies are often mirrored in similar programs to save other valued and endangered mega-fauna. Through GIS analysis, collating data from across the literature, and combining this information within a modelling and decision analysis framework, we analysed which strategy or combination of strategies is the most cost-effective at maintaining wild orangutan populations, and under what conditions. We discovered that neither strategy was optimal under all circumstances but was dependent on the relative cost per orangutan, the timescale of management concern, and the rate of deforestation. Reintroduction, which costs twelve times as much per animal as compared to protection of forest, was only a cost-effective strategy at very short timescales. For time scales longer than 10-20 years, forest protection is the more cost-efficient strategy for maintaining wild orangutan populations. Our analyses showed that a third, rarely utilised strategy is intermediate: introducing sustainable logging practices and protection from hunting in timber production forest. Maximum long-term cost-efficiency is achieved by working in conservation forest. However, habitat protection involves addressing complex conservation issues and conflicting needs at the landscape level. We find a potential resolution in that well-managed production forests could achieve intermediate conservation outcomes. This has broad implications for sustaining biodiversity more generally within an economically productive landscape. Insights from this analysis should provide a better framework to prioritize financial investments, and facilitate improved integration between the organizations that implement these strategies.
Humans influence tropical rainforest animals directly via exploitation and indirectly via habitat disturbance. Bushmeat hunting and logging occur extensively in tropical forests and have large effects on particular species. But how they alter animal diversity across landscape scales and whether their impacts are correlated across species remain less known. We used spatially widespread measurements of mammal occurrence across Malaysian Borneo and recently developed multispecies hierarchical models to assess the species richness of medium- to large-bodied terrestrial mammals while accounting for imperfect detection of all species. Hunting was associated with 31% lower species richness. Moreover, hunting remained high even where richness was very low, highlighting that hunting pressure persisted even in chronically overhunted areas. Newly logged sites had 11% lower species richness than unlogged sites, but sites logged >10 years previously had richness levels similar to those in old-growth forest. Hunting was a more serious long-term threat than logging for 91% of primate and ungulate species. Hunting and logging impacts across species were not correlated across taxa. Negative impacts of hunting were the greatest for common mammalian species, but commonness versus rarity was not related to species-specific impacts of logging. Direct human impacts appeared highly persistent and lead to defaunation of certain areas. These impacts were particularly severe for species of ecological importance as seed dispersers and herbivores. Indirect impacts were also strong but appeared to attenuate more rapidly than previously thought. The lack of correlation between direct and indirect impacts across species highlights that multifaceted conservation strategies may be needed for mammal conservation in tropical rainforests, Earth's most biodiverse ecosystems.
The transmission of dengue disease is influenced by complex interactions among vector, host and virus. Land use such as water bodies or certain agricultural practices have been identified as likely risk factors for dengue because of the provision of suitable habitats for the vector. Many studies have focused on the land use factors of dengue vector abundance in small areas but have not yet studied the relationship between land use factors and dengue cases for large regions. This study aims to clarify if land use factors other than human settlements, e.g. different types of agricultural land use, water bodies and forest are associated with reported dengue cases from 2008 to 2010 in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. From the correlative relationship, we aim to generate a prediction risk map. We used Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) to account for nonlinearities and interactions between the factors with high predictive accuracies. Our model with a cross-validated performance score (Area Under the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve, ROC AUC) of 0.81 showed that the most important land use factors are human settlements (model importance of 39.2%), followed by water bodies (16.1%), mixed horticulture (8.7%), open land (7.5%) and neglected grassland (6.7%). A risk map after 100 model runs with a cross-validated ROC AUC mean of 0.81 (±0.001 s.d.) is presented. Our findings may be an important asset for improving surveillance and control interventions for dengue.
The current study determined the prevalence of intestinal protozoan infections among the Orang Asli schoolchildren in Pos Senderut, Pahang, Malaysia. The overall intestinal protozoan infection rate was 85% (261 out of 307). The highest prevalence rates were due to Entamoeba coli (24.4%), Giardia lamblia (21.8%), Blastocystis hominis (21.2%) and Entamoeba histolytica (15.0%). The prevalence of Iodamoeba butschlii was only 2.9%. Among the positive samples, mixed infection with B. hominis and E. histolytica was 3.3%, B. hominis and G. lamblia was 2.9%, G. lamblia and E. histolytica was 2.0% and triple infections (B. hominis, G. lamblia and E. histolytica) was 1.0 %. The prevalence of the infection was high in all age groups (6-14 years old). Thus, we can conclude that intestinal protozoan infections are still representing a serious public health problem in aboriginal communities, especially among children.
Despite increasing control measures, numerous parasitic and infectious diseases are emerging, re-emerging or causing recurrent outbreaks particularly in Asia and the Pacific region, a hot spot of both infectious disease emergence and biodiversity at risk. We investigate how biodiversity affects the distribution of infectious diseases and their outbreaks in this region, taking into account socio-economics (population size, GDP, public health expenditure), geography (latitude and nation size), climate (precipitation, temperature) and biodiversity (bird and mammal species richness, forest cover, mammal and bird species at threat). We show, among countries, that the overall richness of infectious diseases is positively correlated with the richness of birds and mammals, but the number of zoonotic disease outbreaks is positively correlated with the number of threatened mammal and bird species and the number of vector-borne disease outbreaks is negatively correlated with forest cover. These results suggest that, among countries, biodiversity is a source of pathogens, but also that the loss of biodiversity or its regulation, as measured by forest cover or threatened species, seems to be associated with an increase in zoonotic and vector-borne disease outbreaks.