Finding relevant disaster data from a huge metadata overhead often results in frustrating search
experiences caused by unclear access points, ambiguous search methods, unsuitable metadata, and long response times. More frequently, semantic relation between the retrieved objects is neglected. This paper presents a system architecture that makes use of ontologies in order to enable semantic metadata descriptions for gathering and integrating multi-format documents in the context of disaster management. After a brief discussion on the challenges of the integration process, the Multi-format Information Retrieval, Integration and Presentation (MIRIP) architecture is presented. A specific approach for ontology development and mapping process is introduced in order to semantically associate user’s query and documents metadata. An ontology model approach was designed to follow inspirational and collaborative approaches with top-down to bottom-up implementation. A prototype of the integrated disaster management information system is currently under development, based on the architecture that is presented in this paper.
Each organization has a particular culture, due to personal interactions, with certain values shared by its members. Corporate culture is defined as ‘the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments’. Positive corporate culture is linked to increased staff alignment, advanced level of employee commitment, increased employee productivity, enhanced organizational effectiveness and increased profitability. Researchers claimed that most studies suggesting the associations between culture and performance are methodologically weak. Cultural transformation has been a big part of NHS reforms and health system redesign in United States to deliver improvements in quality and performance. Environment, market competition, technology advancement, information age and government policies will influence the cultural change within the organization. Undesirable culture might emerge if the organization does not act appropriately to manage its corporate culture. There are six critical success factors for the implementation of corporate culture changes: committed and effective leadership, clear definition of the desired goals, rigorous implementation of a change management model, effective mitigation of change resistance, active governance structure and a design model, and effective communication. Among the issues in implementing corporate culture within healthcare organizations are middle managers dilemma, cultural diversity and subcultures within the organization, size of healthcare organization and critical mass.
Endotoxins (chemically known as Lipopolysaccharide) from gram-negative microorganisms initiates clot formation in blood when it is accidentally encountered by horseshoe crab blood stream. This property was extensively studied by various researchers as a result Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) test was established. The LAL tests in general, 3 to 300 times more sensitive than the United States Pharmacopeial (USP) rabbit pyrogen test method. It is apparent that major differences among the LAL preparations lie in the area of sensitivity. Differences, up to 100-fold, exist in the sensitivity of the various LAL preparations to the same endotoxin. Based on the above perspective, a portable Kit (Endo sensor) was developed to detect the presence of bacterial endotoxin in liquid biological samples using Tachypleus Amebocyte Lysate (TAL) as a source. Sensitivity of the Kit was determined using various concentrations of prepared endotoxin standards and pyrogen free water samples. It was observed that Endo sensor could detect up to nano gram level of endotoxin in liquid biological samples which could be expressed in (EU/ml) and the labeled sensitivity of the lysated product was 0.125 EU/ml. The gel clotting principle method was utilized for the detection of bacterial endotoxin in liquid biological samples.
INTRODUCTION: Surgery in patients with haemophilia B carries a high risk of excessive bleeding and requires adequate haemostatic control until wound healing. Nonacog beta pegol, a long-acting recombinant glycoPEGylated factor IX (FIX), was used in the perioperative management of patients undergoing major surgery.
AIM: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of nonacog beta pegol in patients with haemophilia B who undergo major surgery.
METHODS: This was an open-label, multicentre, non-controlled surgery trial aimed at assessing peri- and postoperative efficacy and safety of nonacog beta pegol in 13 previously treated patients with haemophilia B. All patients received a preoperative nonacog beta pegol bolus injection of 80 IU kg-1 . Postoperatively, the patients received fixed nonacog beta pegol doses of 40 IU kg-1 , repeated at the investigator's discretion. Safety assessments included monitoring of immunogenicity and adverse events.
RESULTS: Intraoperative haemostatic effect was rated 'excellent' or 'good' in all 13 cases. Apart from the preoperative injection, none of the patients needed additional doses of nonacog beta pegol on the day of surgery. The median number of postoperative doses of nonacog beta pegol was 2.0 from days 1 to 6 and 1.5 from days 7 to 13. No unexpected intra- or postoperative complications were observed including deaths or thromboembolic events. No patients developed inhibitors.
CONCLUSIONS: These results indicated that nonacog beta pegol was safe and effective in the perioperative setting, allowing major surgical interventions in patients with haemophilia B with minimal peri- and postoperative concentrate consumption and infrequent injections as reported with standard FIX products.
KEYWORDS: Phase III; factor IX; haemophilia B; long-acting recombinant factor IX; nonacog beta pegol; surgery
A twin registry is a registry of twin pairs (monozygotic = MZ and Dizygotic = DZ) who are willing to consider participating in health-related research. Twins are able to help researchers study the impact of genetic and environmental factors on health and the treatment and prevention of disease in a special way. Throughout the world, twin registries have been established by the governments via the National Health and Medical Research in order to put researchers in touch with twins who might be willing to take part in particular projects. In Australia, for example, more than 30,000 pairs of twins have joined the registry, making it the largest volunteer registry of its kind in the world. However, in some countries such as Denmark, the first twin registry was born in a medical faculty and it was then expanded to the National Twin Registry of Denmark. (Copied from article).
If we were given a questionnaire of “How do we measure a researcher as a true scientist? with optional answers like (a) Having a good number of publications, (b) having attending numerous conferences, (c) with a high popularity as always appeared in mass media, and (d) good international networking and good public relations. Options (c) and (d) always come later after option (a) has been achieved, while option (b) can be simply achieved or abstract be accepted for presentation in any conference. Hitherto, publishing in any peer-reviewed journals carry a certain quality since they are highly subjected to peer review evaluation before the paper can be accepted for publication in a journal. Needless to say, those constructive comments given by the reviewers are very crucial in shaping our scientific understanding in our subject area rather than rejection experience (Yap, 2009). Having said so, option (a) will definitely be the best answer. The fact is that option (a) should not be argued whatsoever as the best answer [since publications speaks louder than anything else] and options (a), (b) and (c) are supplementary criteria to option (a) but they are not as vital as option (a). When we are asked ‘What is your scientific research performance or research output?’, the answer could always be ‘Having a good number of publications.’ Then, the next question forwarded is that ‘What is the quality and impact of your published papers to the scientific community?’ Of course, good and high impact factor journals always accept papers with high novelty in the subject area. Therefore, papers published in good journals are always highly cited and subsequently resulting in high impact (or citations) of the research done to the scientific community. However, the last question is sometimes very subjective and difficult to answer until h-index is introduced and discussed among the researchers. This paper aimed to discuss the h-index based on Elsevier’s Scopus database as an indicator of research achievement for young Malaysian scientists.
Journal of Sports Science and Physical Education 5(2): 44-52, 2016 - The aim of this study is
to identify the differences in academic achievement between athletes involved in Karnival
Kokurikulum Sukan antara Kolej Matrikulasi (KAKOM) and non-athletes in Labuan
Matriculation College. Overall 200 respondents selected athletes are students from KAKOM
athletes (n=100) and non-athlete students (n=100) in Semester 1, 2015/2016. The survey
design and purposely sampling technique was used for data collection. The respondents are
comprised of students majoring in Accounting, One Year Program (PST) Module 1, PST
Module 2 and PST Module 3. Descriptive statistic was used to obtain frequency and
percentage for each of the variables and to determine the level of academic achievement
(CGPA) of athletes and non-athletes. Inferential statistic was used to compare the mean
scores achieved by cumulative grade point average (CGPA) between KAKOM athletes and
non-athletes based on t-test. T test was also used to identify the differences in academic
performance of athletes and non-athletes based on gender. The findings of this study showed
no significant differences in terms of academic achievement among student who are athletes
and non-athletes. Similarly, the findings of the performance of athletes and non-athletes
based on gender showed no significant differences. From the results of this study, it shows
that there are no differences in academic achievement between students who involved in
KAKOM sports and those who dont involved. The researcher suggests that students should
be active in sports and recreational activities during college because it will be beneficial for
health and indirectly develop their soft skills. The study found that sports factor is not the
cause for deterioration in academic achievement but there are other factors that affect
academic performance which needs further study focusing more on students who are failing
academically.
Research publication is an essential part of scientific research process. Writing is a means of communication of scientific work, a means to disseminate the research findings to the public and also to their peers. A scientific paper is a written and published report describing original research results. Getting a paper published in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal is an important goal for any researcher. It is an indication of research success. There are many reasons why people write and this ranged from pure altruism to pleasure to intellectual pursuits to contribute to the scientific knowledge, to improve patient care and to benefit the community and mankind. Reasons to write vary from one individual to another individual. Writing can be difficult and it is seen as a chore, such as, fulfilling a minimum requirement of an organization to get a job, a job confirmation or a promotion, and career development.
Evidence thus far still supports the contention that fish derived omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are good for heart patients. But this controversy tells us something about the medical research, and the acquisition and application of medical knowledge. Being scientists, doctors try to perform studies as rigorously as possible with randomised, placebo-controlled trials and using tests of statistical significance. But since the studies are on humans, with all their individual differing habits and inconsistencies, different results are produced by different researchers. And so while medicine is a science, in that the trials are scientifically conducted, the interpretation of the results, and in particular its application for the individual patient, is very much an art. A good doctor, like the good artist, must spend much time, energy and effort sieving through the good from the not so good data before coming out with the correct picture. Only by keeping an unbiased, inquisitive mind can the evidence be reviewed to solve the problem at hand. Almost always, the balance of data will favour a particular stand. In this day when newspapers are full of medical articles, a family physician has to be educated, interested and inquisitive to be a source of accurate and relevant information for the patients.
Introduction: With an increase in national nursing shortage, organizational commitment is extremely
important for retention of nurses. This predictive study determines the level of organizational commitment and the predictive ability of perceived organizational support, components of job satisfaction, including pay, task requirement, organizational policies, autonomy, interaction and professional status as well as years of experience on organizational commitment. Method: Data were collected from 416 nurses in four state hospitals in Malaysia, using self-administered questionnaires. The hospitals were selected from each region in Peninsular Malaysia and samples were selected by a random sampling method. Questionnaires, including demographic data, Organizational Commitment Questionnaires, Survey of Perceived Organizational Support,and Index Work Satisfaction were distributed by researcher and research assistants. Stepwise multiple regression technique was used to analyze the data. Results: The results discovered that (1) nearly half of the subjects (48.07%) reported high level of organizational commitment. (2) Professional status, autonomy, interaction, task requirement and years of experience could predict the organizational commitment (ß = 0.52, 0.17, p < 0.01); ß= 0.13, 0.11, 0.09, p < 0.05 respectively). Overall, all predictors explained 33% of variability
in the organizational commitment among nurses in state hospitals. Conclusions: This study found that nurses in state hospitals were highly committed to their organizations. Results of this study provide information for nurse administrators to consider and maintain these factors in nursing practice to foster a high level of organizational commitment among Malaysian nurses.
It has been decided that IeJSME should be a general rather than specialty medical journal in that it would cover work ranging from bench science to clinical and medical education research. While this is to ensure the ease of soliciting sufficient manuscripts for sustainability of the journal, the other important reason is to provide learning opportunities for novice researchers, including undergraduate medical students, to improve their work in such a way that are publishable at a certain research quality. This intention is being birthed primarily with our 16-year old medical university and Malaysia in mind, although, as the journal title suggests, we aim that the work published in IeJSME will have international relevance and importance. (Copied from article).
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) was introduced to provide an organised approach to clinicians and other health care providers in using research to care for their patients[1]. By highlighting the importance of research in patient care, EBM has also provided many researchers a strong sense of purpose, with increased awareness that their everyday activities are being recognised as relevant to patient care. Most medical schools have some form of the EBM training programme at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and many researchers, clinical epidemiologists, and biostatisticians together with clinicians are actively engaged in teaching EBM to students of medicine and other health sciences. However, the flourishing activities of EBM education bring along
challenges.
Background: Reflection on the process of learning is an essential ingredient in transforming novice into expert learners. Learning to compile portfolio encourages reflective skills, which help students to work systemically in translating metacognition into self-regulatory control in order to adjust their action and monitor their learning objectives. Introducing to compile portfolio in the early years of postgraduate training is an effective tool to stimulate students’ reflective abilities. Reflective learners are better motivated than the conventional learners to take the responsibilities as researcher in future. Reflective skills achieve both learning in right direction and learning for whole life. However, use of formal methods of reflective portfolio to monitor the learning objectives is an uncommon practice in postgraduate training, primarily due to intensive time and labor required. Challenged with those constraints in Master’s of Surgery Program of Otolaryngology and Head-Neck Surgery in School of Medical Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia, a structured self-reflective portfolio was introduced to determine its feasibility and acceptance among supervisors and trainees. Portfolio was practiced as one of the tool for formative assessment and for making recommendations to certify independent thyroid surgery allowed to practice in future. Methodology: A self-reflective structured portfolio was introduced to monitor the learning objectives in trainees of 2007 cohort, using a model as "mentor-system for authentic and structured learning with self-reflective assessment" (MASSRA). Initially a semi-structured portfolio comprising of 12 items and guidelines to compile a portfolio was followed by a structured format in training of thyroid module in sub-specialty of Head and Neck Surgery. Mentoring was organized by putting one-mentor verses 9 students to provide general pastoral guidance to compile portfolio as two entries a year. Mentors held the counseling session with student twice a year after evaluating the portfolios to monitor their progress. Besides, candidates were also observed for their performance in thyroid surgery during a 4-years training program. Those identified with problems for their level of training were referred to "Joint Committee for Surgical Training" comprising of 3 supervisors from Head and Neck Surgery Sub-specialty and a chairman supposedly the head of the department. 7 randomly selected students were also interviewed for direct feedback to evaluate this model. Result: 28 trainees at different level of their training compiled a self-reflection structured portfolio minimum twice a year with instructional feedback from the mentor, which was used as a tract for their personal development plan (produced by each trainee) for training in thyroid surgery. Initial analysis of portfolio revealed interesting feedback from the trainees reflecting on their knowledge, surgical skills and attitude towards thyroid surgery seen in tables 2-4. Conclusion: Self-reflections about each structured items in portfolio-helped trainees to identify their problems, seek mentors guidance and work systemically to help adjust their actions by revising learning objectives. Though time and labor intensive, portfolio was rated as feasible and practical.
Introduction : Despite the number of information generated by researchers, cardiovascular diseases problem has not clearly declined and perhaps in certain situation it is gradually increasing, affecting people who are previously at low risk. There is a tendency to believe that favourable outcomes can always be expected once intervention activities, like exercise promotion, are carried out, but practical experience gives rise to serious doubt.
Methods : A greater understanding of the socialization mechanisms operating in the adoption of physical activity in CVD control and allow specific exercise prescriptions for communitybased prevention and control is important. This paper highlighted the author’s feeling about controlling chronic diseases by mean of community intervention.
Results : This analysis has strongly believed that the important impetus of any community intervention approach should be oriented in the form of “from people to people”.
Conclusion : More emphasis needs to be placed on effective management and parameters for assessment of its management success.
Introduction : Studies on stress among diabetic patients with complications are not much conducted locally. In this study the researchers would like to find out the magnitude of the problem among the Malaysian.
Methodology : A cross- sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of stress and its associated factors among the diabetes mellitus patients with complications at Raja Perempuan Zainab II Hospital, Kota Bharu, Kelantan. The translated Personal Stress Inventory questionairse was used to measure the stress among the respondents.
Finding : The prevalence of stress was 36.8%. The study showed that the employment status of respondents has significant association with stress in which higher numbers of unemployed respondents were stressed as compared to the employed respondents. Other sociodemographic factors, namely duration of having diabetes mellitus and type of complications developed by the patients were not significant.
Conclusion : Once the poor and unemployed patients were diagnosed to have diabetes mellitus either with or without complication, the health staffs should refer them immediately to the relevant agencies for help. By doing so, these patients could be prevented from having stress later. Outreach programmes in the community should be carried out regularly for an early detection and treatment of chronic diseases including diabetes mellitus to prevent patients from developing any complication.
Researchers have developed and modified DNA biosensor techniques to provide a fast, simple and sensitive method for detection of human diseases, bacterial food contamination, forensic and environmental research. This study describes the physical characterization of screen-printed carbon electrodes using the scanning electron microscope.
Researchers all over the world have continuously contributed knowledge on common human cancers and its related risks. Despite these mountains of information, the trend of cancer problems has not significantly declined and perhaps in certain occasion, it gradually increased affecting those who are previously known to be less risky'. Cancer is still identified to be one of the top leading killer worldwide and is also the main source of psychosocial burden of the community particularly to the caregiver' Its problems are expected to be further increased as human beings are constantly modified and manipulated by unpredictable and dynamic human activities and globalization phenomena. Furthermore, the current advances in cancer therapy and others clinical interventions are not always guaranteed of a permanent cure, improve survival or prognosis, sustainable compliances, prolonging life and improving quality of life, thus the mortality and its associated biological and management complications are still prevalence. (Copied from article).
The controversy on malignant transformation of oral lichen planus has always intrigued researchers. We present a case of lichenoid lesion and squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, occurring in a middle aged Indian lady. The diagnosis and timing of these lesions is discussed.
Human adipose tissue has been recognized as an alternative source of adult stem cells. The abundance and ease of harvest of adipose tissue has made it suitable for use in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Adipose-derived stem cells isolated from human adipose tissue are able to differentiate into several mesenchymal lineages and secrete growth factors that exhibit therapeutic potential. Protein profiles have been established using various isolation methods, which has expanded researchers’ understanding of adipose-derived stem cells in clinical applications. This review highlights the properties, isolation methods, immunophenotype and clinical applications of adipose-derived stem cells.
This research describes a comparative study using convenience sampling on management of intravenous lines in Maternity Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (MNICU), HKL. Questionnaires were answered by nurses and the techniques of anchoring, splinting and maintaining of intravenous lines by nurses in MNICU were observed by the researchers. The study showed that nurses with less than two years experience working in MNICU had significantly less knowledge and skills in the management of intravenous lines and are likely to encounter more difficulties and complications, compared to nurses with more experience.