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Fulltext Selective growth of ZnO nanorods on microgap electrodes and their applications in UV sensors

Humayun Q, Kashif M, Hashim U, Qurashi A

Nanoscale Res Lett, 2014;9(1):29.
PMID: 24423232 DOI: 10.1186/1556-276X-9-29

Selective area growth of ZnO nanorods is accomplished on microgap electrodes (spacing of 6 μm) by using a facile wet chemical etching process. The growth of ZnO nanorods on a selected area of microgap electrode is carried out by hydrothermal synthesis forming nanorod bridge between two electrodes. This is an attractive, genuine, direct, and highly reproducible technique to grow nanowire/nanorod onto the electrodes on selected area. The ZnO nanorods were grown at 90°C on the pre-patterned electrode system without destroying the electrode surface structure interface and geometry. The ZnO nanorods were tested for their application in ultraviolet (UV) sensors. The photocurrent-to-dark (Iph/Id) ratio was 3.11. At an applied voltage of 5 V, the response and recovery time was 72 and 110 s, respectively, and the response reached 2 A/W. The deposited ZnO nanorods exhibited a UV photoresponse that is promising for future cost-effective and low-power electronic UV-sensing applications.
Fulltext Species distribution and antifungal susceptibility patterns of Candida species: Is low susceptibility to itraconazole a trend in Malaysia?

Santhanam J, Yahaya N, Aziz MN

Med J Malaysia, 2013 Aug;68(4):343-7.
PMID: 24145264

Resistance to antifungal agents has increased in Candida spp., especially in non-albicans species. Recent findings reported a strikingly low susceptibility in Candida spp. towards itraconazole in Malaysia. In this study, a colorimetric broth dilution method was utilized to determine the susceptibility of Candida spp. isolated in Kuala Lumpur Hospital within a six month period. A total of 82 isolates from blood, peritoneal and other fluids were tested against 8 antifungal agents using the Sensititre Yeast One method. These comprised of 32 (39%) C. albicans, 17 (20.7%) C. glabrata, 15 (18.3%) C. tropicalis, 13 (15.9%) C. parapsilosis, two (2.4%) C. sake and 1 (1.2%) each of C. pelliculosa, C. rugosa and Pichia etchellsii/carsonii. Overall, susceptibility of all isolates to caspofungin was 98.8%, amphotericin B, 97.6%; 5-flucytosine, 97.6%; voriconazole, 97.6%; posaconazole, 87.8%; fluconazole, 82.9%; ketoconazole, 79.3%; and itraconazole, 56.1%. A total of 18 Candida spp. isolates (22 %) were resistant to at least one antifungal agent tested, and half of these were resistant to three or more antifungal agents. C. glabrata was the most frequently identified resistant species (10 isolates), followed by C. tropicalis (4 isolates), C. parapsilosis (3 isolates) and C. albicans (1 isolate). Resistance was highest against ketoconazole (20.9%), followed by itraconazole (13.4%). However, 30.5% of isolates were susceptible-dose dependent towards itraconazole. Long-term usage of itraconazole in Malaysia and a predominance of nonalbicans species may account for the results observed in this study. In conclusion, susceptibility to antifungal drugs is species-dependent among Candida spp.; reduced susceptibility to itraconazole is concomitant with the high number of non-albicans Candida species isolated in Malaysia.
Fulltext A rare 47 XXY/46 XX mosaicism with clinical features of Klinefelter syndrome

Mohd Nor NS, Jalaludin MY

Int J Pediatr Endocrinol, 2016;2016:11.
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
Kinetic study on microwave-assisted esterification of free fatty acids derived from Ceiba pentandra Seed Oil

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.
Fulltext SMARTbot: A Behavioral Analysis Framework Augmented with Machine Learning to Identify Mobile Botnet Applications

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.
Dislodgement of the MGuard Prime MicroNet™ During Primary PCI

Ismail MD, Han CK, Loch A

Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol, 2016 May;39(5):785-787.
PMID: 26757911 DOI: 10.1007/s00270-015-1290-1
Environment and air pollution like gun and bullet for low-income countries: war for better health and wealth

Zou X, Azam M, Islam T, Zaman K

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2016 Feb;23(4):3641-57.
PMID: 26493298 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-015-5591-3

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of environmental indicators and air pollution on "health" and "wealth" for the low-income countries. The study used a number of promising variables including arable land, fossil fuel energy consumption, population density, and carbon dioxide emissions that simultaneously affect the health (i.e., health expenditures per capita) and wealth (i.e., GDP per capita) of the low-income countries. The general representation for low-income countries has shown by aggregate data that consist of 39 observations from the period of 1975-2013. The study decomposes the data set from different econometric tests for managing robust inferences. The study uses temporal forecasting for the health and wealth model by a vector error correction model (VECM) and an innovation accounting technique. The results show that environment and air pollution is the menace for low-income countries' health and wealth. Among environmental indicators, arable land has the largest variance to affect health and wealth for the next 10-year period, while air pollution exerts the least contribution to change health and wealth of low-income countries. These results indicate the prevalence of war situation, where environment and air pollution become visible like "gun" and "bullet" for low-income countries. There are required sound and effective macroeconomic policies to combat with the environmental evils that affect the health and wealth of the low-income countries.
Effect of autoclaving and sintering on the formation of β-wollastonite

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.
A Review of Bisindolylmethane as an Important Scaffold for Drug Discovery

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.
Fulltext An Automated and Intelligent Medical Decision Support System for Brain MRI Scans Classification

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.
Cellulose acetate from oil palm empty fruit bunch via a one step heterogeneous acetylation

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.
Fulltext Demographic characteristics and intravenous drug use among hepatitis C patients in the Kota Setar district, Kedah, Malaysia

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.
Fluoride adsorption by doped and un-doped magnetic ferrites CuCe(x)Fe(2-x)O4: Preparation, characterization, optimization and modeling for effectual remediation technologies

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.
Fulltext Modelling social entrepreneurial intention among university students in Bangladesh using value-belief-norm framework

Naznen F, Al Mamun A, Rahman MK

Curr Psychol, 2022 Dec 16.
PMID: 36540692 DOI: 10.1007/s12144-022-04119-2

While the public sector authorities and governments struggle to ensure socioeconomic balance at all levels of society, social entrepreneurship is widely known as the optimum solution to societal issues, such as unemployment, social disparities, and ecological imbalances. Despite the fact that the younger generation holds the highest potential to be future social entrepreneurs, a few studies have been conducted to explore the factors that influence their social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) in developing countries, such as Bangladesh. Furthermore, the empirical studies based on the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory for addressing SEI were scarce in the existing literature. The study aims to measure the influence of Altruistic Values (AV), Traditional Values (TV), Personal Normative Beliefs (NB), Awareness of Consequences (AC), Ascription of Responsibility (AR), Personal Norms (PN), and Social Norms (SN) on SEI implementation of the VBN framework. A combination of web-based and hardcopy surveys was used to collect data from 797 students of higher educational institutes in Bangladesh. The hypotheses and associations between the factors were statistically analysed using structural equation modelling. As a result, it was demonstrated that AV and TV had a notable influence on NB. Similarly, NB showed a significant positive impact on PN and AC, while AC and AR were reported to have a substantial influence on PN. Finally, PN and SN showed a strong impact on SEI. The holistic social entrepreneurship model proposed in this study should be effective for socioeconomic development by incorporating commercially feasible and sustainable principles. Overall, the study findings would assist researchers, current social entrepreneurs and organisations, educational institutes, government agencies, and individual potential entrepreneurs with accurate knowledge and insight to construct their strategies and efficiently pursue social ventures.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-04119-2.
PATIENTS SATISFACTION WITH PAIN MEDICATION: A STUDY OF LABORATORY MEDICINE

Akula S, Singh P, Murad M, Hameed W

Georgian Med News, 2022 Oct.
PMID: 36539132

Patients in pain have different levels of satisfaction. The experience of patients regarding medication is based on their past treatment. The mental satisfaction of the patients for laboratory medication is necessary for their health recovery. The satisfaction of patients is a challenge for healthcare institutes to provide better facilities to patients. The goal of this research is to investigate the impact of taking patch pain medication, taking oral pain medication, and taking intravenous medication on patients' satisfaction with laboratory pain medication. The model of this research is based on the gap in the literature. 645 responses were considered for data analysis with Smart PLS 3.0 for study findings. The findings disclosed the impact of taking patch pain medication, taking an oral medication, and taking intravenous medication is significant on patients' satisfaction with laboratory pain medication. The study has theoretically enriched the literature with a unique contribution to the study model. Practically, the study has discovered the ways the healthcare sector can improve the satisfaction of patients for their better health and satisfaction. The future directions highlighted by this study are useful for future studies to contribute to patients' satisfaction with laboratory medication.
Processing and properties optimisation of carbon nanofibre-reinforced magnesium composites for biomedical applications

Tuminoh H, Hermawan H, Ramlee MH

J Mech Behav Biomed Mater, 2022 Nov;135:105457.
PMID: 36116340 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2022.105457

In the last decade, magnesium alloys have been considered as absorbable metals for biomedical applications, while some have reached their clinical use as temporary bone implants. However, their widespread use is still limited by its strength and degradability. One way of improvement can be done by reinforcing magnesium alloys with carbon nanofibres to form composites. This work aims at developing carbon nanofibre-reinforced magnesium-zinc (Mg-Zn/CNF) composites with optimum strength and degradability while ensuring their biocompatibility. A response surface method was used to determine their optimum process parameters (composition, compaction pressure, and sintering temperature), and analyse the resulting properties (elastic modulus, hardness, weight loss, and cytocompatibility). Results showed that the optimal parameters were reached at 1.8% of CNF, 425 MPa of compaction pressure, and 500 °C of sintering temperature, whereby it gave an elastic modulus of 5 GPa, hardness of 60 Hv, and a weight loss of 51% after three days immersion in PBS. The composites exhibited a hydrophobic surface that controlled the liberation of Mg2+ and Zn2+ ions, leading to more than 70% osteoblast cells viability up to seven days of incubation. This study can also serve as a starting point for future researchers interested in finding methods to fabricate Mg-Zn/CNF composites with high mechanical characteristics, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility.
Fulltext Impact of COVID-19 on the connectedness across global hospitality stocks

Hadi DM, Naeem MA, Karim S

Int J Hosp Manag, 2022 Jul;104:103243.
PMID: 35571508 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2022.103243

This study investigated the connectedness of top ten hospitality stocks in the world and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this connectedness. For this purpose, we employ the time-varying parameter vector autoregressions (TVP-VAR) to examine the return connectedness among the world's top ten hospitality stocks. We further utilize the wavelet coherence measure to test the impact of COVID-related indexes on the connectedness across the hospitality stocks from January 1, 2020 to July 16, 2021. Our findings explore a strong connectedness among the hospitality stocks, although the total connectedness index is considerably affected by the first wave, the second wave, and the approval of COVID-19 vaccines. France and UK hospitality stocks appeared to be dominant and were the highest net transmitters of spillover shocks to other sample stocks. We document that the COVID-19 pandemic is the prime driver of the hospitality stocks' connectedness during the sample period. Aside from the contribution to hospitality and finance literature, our conclusions and implications can also benefit parties such as hospitality firm managers, investors, portfolio managers, and policymakers.
Mapping Chini Lake (Pahang, Malaysia) using Sentinel-2 images to determine the effect of acid mine drainage in the pre- to post-COVID-19 restriction period

Rendana M, Idris WMR, Rahim SA

Environ Monit Assess, 2022 Dec 17;195(1):205.
PMID: 36527450 DOI: 10.1007/s10661-022-10833-y

Mining activities in the Chini Lake catchment area have been extensive for several years, contributing to acid mine drainage (AMD) events with high concentrations of iron (Fe) and other heavy metals impacting the surface water. However, during the restriction period due to the COVID-19 outbreak, anthropogenic activities have been suspended, which clearly shows a good opportunity for a better environment. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the variation of AMD-associated water pollution in three main zones of the Chini Lake catchment area using Sentinel-2 data for the periods pre-movement control order (MCO), during MCO, and post-MCO from 2019 to 2021. These three zones were chosen due to their proximity to mining areas: zone 1 in the northeastern part, zone 2 in the southeastern part, and zone 3 in the southern part of the Chini Lake area. The acid mine water index (AMWI) was a specific index used to estimate acid mine water. The AMWI values from Sentinel-2 images exhibited that the mean AMWI values in all zones during the MCO period decreased by 14% compared with the pre-MCO period. The spatiotemporal analysis found that the highest polluted zones were recorded in zone 1, followed by zone 3 and zone 2. As compared with during the MCO period, the maximum percentage of increment during post-MCO in all zones was up to 25%. The loosened restriction policy has resulted in more AMD flowing into surface water and increased pollution in Chini Lake. As a whole, our outputs revealed that Sentinel-2 data had a major potential for assessing the AMD-associated pollution of water.
Fulltext Diseases among Orang Asli community in Malaysia: a systematic review

Mahmud MH, Baharudin UM, Md Isa Z

BMC Public Health, 2022 Nov 16;22(1):2090.
PMID: 36384509 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-022-14449-2

Orang Asli, the indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia, is a minority population and placed behind in terms of socioeconomy, education and health. The Malaysian government has supported Orang Asli since the second Malaysia Plan in the 1970s, resulting in changes in their living standard, access to health, education and occupation. Hence, this review aims to assess the recent prevalence of diseases among Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) review protocol guided this systematic review. The research question was formulated based on Population, Interest, Comparison and Outcome (PICO). The selected databases include Web of Science, Scopus, Ovid and EBSCOhost. The process of identification, screening and inclusion identified 33 articles. The mixed methods appraisal tool (MMAT) was then used to rank the quality of the articles. Selangor is the most frequent state involved in this review (12 studies), followed by Perak (10 studies), Pahang (10 studies) and Kedah (one study). We categorised into four categories of diseases, namely neglected tropical disease (n = 20), non-communicable disease (n = 6), nutritional status (n = 5), and hepatic disease (n = 2). The prevalence of diseases among Orang Asli is higher than in the general population, especially for soil-transmitted helminth (STH) and malnutrition. There is increasing research on non-communicable diseases due to an increasing trend in the socioeconomic status and lifestyle of the Orang Asli. Government agencies and private organisations must work together to empower Orang Asli with a healthy lifestyle, improve their socioeconomic status, and enhance food security, all of which will improve Orang Asli's health and reduce the prevalence of diseases.
Fulltext Gelatin-Based Film as a Color Indicator in Food-Spoilage Observation: A Review

Shaik MI, Azhari MF, Sarbon NM

Foods, 2022 Nov 24;11(23).
PMID: 36496605 DOI: 10.3390/foods11233797

The color indicator can monitor the quality and safety of food products due to its sensitive nature toward various pH levels. A color indicator helps consumers monitor the freshness of food products since it is difficult for them to depend solely on their appearance. Thus, this review could provide alternative suggestions to solve the food-spoilage determination, especially for perishable food. Usually, food spoilage happens due to protein and lipid oxidation, enzymatic reaction, and microbial activity that will cause an alteration of the pH level. Due to their broad-spectrum properties, natural sources such as anthocyanin, curcumin, and betacyanin are commonly used in developing color indicators. They can also improve the gelatin-based film's morphology and significant drawbacks. Incorporating natural colorants into the gelatin-based film can improve the film's strength, gas-barrier properties, and water-vapor permeability and provide antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. Hence, the color indicator can be utilized as an effective tool to monitor and control the shelf life of packaged foods. Nevertheless, future studies should consider the determination of food-spoilage observation using natural colorants from betacyanin, chlorophyll, and carotenoids, as well as the determination of gas levels in food spoilage, especially carbon dioxide gas.

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