A study to determine the antibiotic sensitivity pattern and genotyping using RAPD-PCR was performed on 50 C. jejuni isolated from sushi retailed in different supermarkets. With less than half of the isolates susceptible to the antibiotics tested, resistant to two or more antibiotics were observed in most of the isolates. The banding patterns obtained from RAPD-PCR revealed that no predominant clone exists and the bacterial population is rather diverse. Hence, the resistance of the C. jejuni to different classes of antibiotic as well as their diverse genotypes suggests that these C. jejuni isolates were generated from different sources in the contaminated supermarkets where sushi were retailed. Our data showed that C. jejuni can be an important reservoir for resistance genes and that study with comprehensive collections of samples are urgently required to establish better measures to reduce or eliminate the risk from antibiotic resistant and pathogenic bacteria originating from minimally processed ready-to-eat food.
Colon carcinogenesis is a malignant tumor, and is well-known as the third leading cancer,
which contributes to high mortality and morbidity worldwide. Brewers’ rice, known locally as
temukut, consists of a mixture of broken kernels with rice bran and rice germ which is a byproduct
produced in the rice industry. Although extensive studies on the anti-cancer properties
of rice bran, published data on the cytotoxicity of brewers’ rice are very limited. The present
study was conducted to evaluate the apoptosis induction capability of the water extract of
brewers’ rice (WBR) on human colorectal cancer (HT-29) cell line. The HT-29 cells were
treated with various concentrations (16, 32, and 64 μg/mL) of WBR for 24 and 48 hours. The
morphological analysis of apoptotic cells was evaluated using inverted light microscope and
fluorescence microscope. The apoptotic HT-29 cells was evaluated using Annexin V-FITC and
propidium iodide (PI) staining apoptosis test and cell cycle analyses. The data obtained were
evaluated using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and P < 0.05 was considered statistical
significant. Overall analyses indicated that WBR induced typical characteristics of apoptosis in
HT-29 cells, including nuclear fragmentation (NF), nuclear compaction (NC), apoptotic bodies
(AB), cellular shrinkage (CS), and chromatin condensation (CC), as visualized under inverted
light microscope and fluorescence microscope. Cell cycle analyses and Annexin V-FITC and
propidium iodide (PI) staining apoptosis test using flow cytometry revealed that WBR induced
apoptotic population in HT-29 cells. In this study, our findings provide clear evidence that
WBR inhibits the growth of HT-29 cells via induction of apoptosis. Taken together, we suggest
that WBR may be a potential candidate for the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer.
Learning through game scene is considered a game-based learning approach. Teaching and learning process using game scene is deemed interesting and effective due to the nature for this approach which seems alive with asserted activities. Students experience their own game via narration through the virtual world they undertook. This investigation is targeted towards conceptual change and explanation for basic programming theorem through navigated game scene by evaluating motivation and student experience. 55 respondents consisted of semester three students from computer software application certification a program from a community college is selected for the undertaken study. Motivation and experience surveys are reference based on intrinsic motivation inventory instrument (IMI). Findings were tabulated based on t-test statistics and descriptive to get the frequency, mean, standard deviation and percentage. Initial results reflected student acknowledgement on utilizing game scenes in terms of elaborating basic game programming key points in providing elevated learning experience.
Leptospirosis has a wide range of presentation which ranges from mild flu-like symptoms, to severe form including renal failure, liver failure, and hemorrhage. Pulmonary involvement can progress from subtle clinical features to life threatening pulmonary hemorrhage and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Although benefits of corticosteroids in adult respiratory distress syndrome have been proven and accepted, evidence for use of corticosteroids in pulmonary leptospirosis is still limited. Given the vasculitic nature of severe leptospirosis, it has been proposed that addition of intravenous corticosteroid therapy, particularly in cases of pulmonary involvement is beneficial. We report a case of leptospirosis with suspected pulmonary hemorrhage which deteriorates after a few days of admission in our tertiary hospital. We have demonstrated that the prescription of a lower dose of corticosteroid than what was widely reported in the literature can equally led to a satisfactory recovery of the pulmonary hemorrhage.
Dandy-Walker syndrome is a rare congenital malformation of the brain that involves the cerebellum and the fourth ventricle. It is characterised by a classical triad of hydrocephalus, cystic dilatation of the fourth ventricle and complete or partial agenesis of the vermis. Majority of cases are diagnosed during neonatal or early infantile period. In this case report, a seven-year-old boy complained of recurrent headaches for the past one year. Physical examination was unremarkable. Examination of the fundus on the same day revealed bilateral papilloedema. His subsequent computed tomography scan of the brain done at a major district hospital demonstrated features in keeping with Dandy-Walker malformation. Our case highlighted the importance of embarking on a detailed and thorough approach when dealing with a child with chronic headache, especially in rural settings where advanced medical equipment is not readily available.
Objective: This study evaluates the feasibility of diffusion tensor imaging(DTI) in assessing median
nerve by measuring diffusion parameters such as fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD),
axial diffusivity (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD) at different sites of median nerve and evaluating
their differences in patients with and without carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in local setting. Methods:
A prospective cross sectional study was performed with 9 female patients diagnosed with CTS by
clinical evaluation and nerve conduction study and 8 age and sex matched normal patients. Magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) wrist was performed with pre-set axial PD and DTI protocol on a 3T
MRI, images post-processed using 3D SLICER software to generate median nerve tract and measure
diffusion parameters FA, MD, AD and RD in segments and focal points. Results: The FA values were
significantly lower in CTS patients, 0.454 (± 0.065), p< 0.002 and demonstrates negative correlation
with disease severity, r = - 0.510, p = 0.002.The mean MD, 1.090 (± 0.178) and mean RD, 0.834
(± 0.128) is higher in CTS patients, p = 0.041 and p = 0.014 respectively. They show an increasing
trend with increasing disease severity. Negative correlation was noted between the FA values and
age groups. FA cut of value of ≤ 0.487 with sensitivity 70.6 % and specificity 76.5%, is suggested
for diagnosing CTS.
Conclusion: MR neurography using DTI can be utilised to detect CTS. Patients with CTS demonstrate
lower FA and higher MD and RD values.
Minimal Change Disease (MCD) and Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) are common causes of nephrotic syndrome. These two conditions are similar in their presentations but differentiated via their histopathological features and responsiveness to corticosteroids. There are ongoing debates whether MCD and FSGS are at the same spectrum of disease rather than separate entities. FSGS has been postulated to be the severe end of the spectrum of MCD. We have reported a case that has primary FSGS after years of poorly controlled MCD, which supports both conditions are the same spectrum of disease.
Is dishonesty affected by one’s creativity and environment? Recent studies have documented the effects of creativity and environment on dishonesty respectively. However, little attention has been given to the interaction effect of creativity and environment. Based on past findings, we hypothesized that creative people, compared to their non-creative counterparts, may tell more lies in an enriched (vs. scarce) environment. An experiment was conducted on a sample of 97 undergraduate students to examine the moderation effect of environment on the linkage of creativity and cheating. Participants completed a creativity task and a questionnaire on general knowledge about Malaysia. Two-way ANOVA analysis showed that creative participants, as well as those in the enriched environment, were more likely to tell lies than their counterparts. More importantly, the interaction effect of creativity and environment was statistically significant. Specifically, the creative people were more likely to cheat in the enriched environment than in the scarce environment. The results not only shed light on the link between creativity and dishonesty but also suggest a new direction for minimizing dishonesty behaviours.
Citation: Low WY, Khoo EM, Tan HM. Sexual Health Problems: Attitudes and Practices of Malaysian General Practitioners. Auckland: Adis International Ltd, 2002
In an attempt to synthesize new solid solutions and search for better performance materials, pentavalent cation dopants were introduced into the non stoichiometric BZN cubic pyrochlore, Bi3Zn1.84Nb3O13.84. Extensive solid solutions were formed in Bi3Zn1.84Nb3-xDxO13.84 with limit at x = 3 and 2.6 for D = Ta and Sb, respectively. This illustrates the possibility of cation-exchange solid solutions due to similarity in dopants’ ionic radii. The elemental analysis confirmed the stoichiometry of doped materials with no deleterious Bi2O3 loss. Ta / Sb doped samples were highly resistive with activation energies ranging from 1.2 - 1.9 eV. Temperature coefficient of capacitance, TCC, decreased from -396 ppm / oC to ~ -180 ppm / oC and ~ -90 ppm / oC for both end members, respectively.
Centella asiatica is widely used as a medicinal plant in Malaysia and other parts of the world. In the present study, the growth and uptake of heavy metal by C. asiatica were determined based on the plant exposure to different treatment of metal-contaminated soils under laboratory conditions. Heavy metals uptake in different parts of the plants namely roots, stems and leaves were determined. In general, it was found that the metal uptake capacity followed the order: roots > stems > leaves. Since a close positive relationship was established between the concentrations of metal accumulated in different parts of the plant and the metal levels in the most contaminated soil, C. asiatica has the potential of being used as a biomonitoring plant for heavy metal pollution in the polluted soils.
The tolerance of Cu by Trichoderma atroviride, a tolerant fungus isolated from the drainage surface sediment of the Serdang Industrial Area was investigated under in vitro conditions. Only this fungus species can tolerate up to 600 mg/L of Cu on solid medium Potato Dextrose Agar based on the isolation of the most tolerant fungus from the polluted sediment. Toxicity test performed on T. atroviride, showed a maximum tolerance at 300 mg/L of Cu concentration when grown in liquid medium Potato Dextrose Broth (PDB). The EC50 value of the isolate was 287.73 mg/L of Cu concentration in PDB. The Cu concentration in the drainage surface sediment, where the T. atroviride was isolated from, was 347.64 μg/g while the geochemical distributions of the non-resistant and resistant fractions of Cu were 99.6 and 0.4%, respectively. The sediment data indicated that the drainage had greatly received anthropogenic Cu from the nearby industries which are involved in the manufacturing of plastics and electronic products. The present findings indicate that the high Cu tolerance showed by T. atroviride could be due to the well adaptation of the fungus to the Cu polluted sediment. Therefore, T. atroviride could be a potential bioremediator of Cu pollution in the freshwater ecosystem.
Aim: To investigate the association between smoking status and body-mass-index (BMI) categories.
Subject and methods: Data are obtained from 2,340 observations from the Malaysia Non-Communicable Disease Surveillance-1. An ordered probability model for BMI categories with ordinal smoking treatment categories is developed and estimated. Marginal and treatment effects are calculated.
Results: Socio-demographic and health-lifestyle factors play significant roles in body weight categories, conditional upon smoking status. Education levels are inversely correlated with BMI categories amongst non-smokers only. Age and income levels are associated with BMI within non-smokers and compulsive smokers. Gender (female), family history of serious illnesses, individual health conditions (hypercholesterolemic, hypertensive), ethnicity (Malays and Indians) and regional locations (metropolitan) are associated with higher BMI levels, irrespective of smoking status. Additionally, BMI categories and levels are closely associated with smoking habits. As individuals switch from non-smoking to casual smoking, the probability of being overweight or obese increases, with an upsurge of 1.89 BMI units. As the casual smoking habit evolves into compulsive smoking, overweight or obese likelihoods are lowered as individuals are more likely to be in the underweight, normal weight or at-risk weight BMI ranges instead, while experiencing a decline of 1.75 BMI units.
Conclusions: There exists close association between BMI categories and levels with smoking habits. As smoking tendencies develop from being a non-smoker to a casual (compulsive) smoker, overweight or obese likelihoods increase (decrease), as individuals realize an upsurge (reduction) in BMI levels.
Study name: Malaysia Non-Communicable Disease Surveillance-1 (MyNCDS-1) survey
In this study, the Hg levels in eight parts of Asystasia gangetica (L.) T. Anderson collected from 14 sites were determined using a Mercury Atomizer MA-1S and a Mercury Detector MD-1. It was found that the ranges for all the parts were 3.21-18.2 μg/kg dry weight for flowers, 1.29-11.2 μg/kg dry weight for stalks, 0.32- 29.4 μg/kg dry weight for seeds, 0.87-10.2 μg/kg dry weight for pericarps, 1.45-18.1 μg/kg dry weight for remainders, 11.8-68.2 μg/kg dry weight for leaves, 0.73-20.9 μg/kg dry weight for stems, and 3.40-33.1 μg/kg dry weight for roots. The overall Hg accumulation pattern in decreasing concentrations was leaf > root > flower > flower remains > stalk > stem > pericarp > seed. This study provided the background levels of Hg in this non-native invasive weed species in Malaysia. However, further studies are needed to confirm it as a biomonitors of Hg in this region.
It is well established the efficacy of orthokeratology (OK) treatment in improving refraction and visual acuity (VA) of low myopic subjects. However, limited data is available on high myopes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes of refraction, VA and contrast sensitivity (CS) over time in high myopic school children after 1 week of overnight OK treatment. A total of 19 high myopic school children were fitted with OK lenses. Mean refraction at baseline was -6.29±1.25 DS. Refraction was conducted using cross cylinder method and LogMAR chart. CS was evaluated using Pelli-Robson and FACT charts. All measurements were taken at baseline, 1, 2, 3 and 7 days after overnight OK. Data was analyzed using repeated measures of ANOVA. The results showed that refraction and CS were significantly improved throughout the study period (p<0.05). Significant changes in all parameters were noted after the first overnight treatment. Mean refraction and unaided VA after 7 nights of treatment was -0.64±1.17DS and 0.08±0.29, respectively. The results from Pelli-Robson and FACT charts showed improvement comparable to aided baseline values (p>0.05). This study concludes that overnight OK reduces refraction but does not compromise VA and CS in high myopic children within the study period. Further studies are needed to determine the long term impact of OK treatment on visual functions in a larger sample of high myopic children.
Calcination temperature greatly influences the total basicity and surface area of catalysts. Investigations were conducted on calcium and niobium (CaO-Nb2O5) mixed oxides catalysts prepared via conventional solid state method (oxides were mixed and ground in agate mortar) and calcined at different temperatures ranging from 300-800oC for 5 h. The catalysts were then characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), CO2 temperature-programmed desorption (TPD- CO2), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analyzer and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The formation of Ca(OH)2 and CaCO3 at lower calcination temperatures (< 600oC) reduced the surface area of the catalyst and masked the basic active sites, hence lowered the total basicity of the catalyst. Besides, low surface area and total basicity were observed at higher calcination temperatures (> 600oC), due to sintering of the fine crystals, which promotes cluster agglomeration. Thus, the optimum calcination temperature for CaO/Nb2O5 mixed oxides was 600oC, which produced the largest surface area (7 m2/g) and total basicity (1301 μmol/g). The biodiesel was produced via transesterification of palm oil, methanol and the catalysts calcined at various temperatures. CaO/Nb2O5 mixed oxide calcined at 600oC showed the highest biodiesel conversion (98%) with methanol/oil molar ratio of 12, 3 wt.% of catalyst, a reaction temperature of 65oC and reaction time of 2 h.
A study has been carried out to characterize hydrocarbons emitted from the burning of three tropical wood species. The woods were burned to ember and smoke aerosols emitted were sampled using high volume sampler fitted with a pre-cleaned glass fibre filters. Hydrocarbons were extracted using ultrasonic agitation with dichloromethane-methanol (3:1 v/v) as solvent and the extracts obtained were then fractionated on silica-alumina column. Detection and quantification of aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compounds were carried out using GC-MS. The results indicated that the major aliphatic hydrocarbons characterized were straight chain n-alkanes in the range of C12-C35 with Cmax in the range of C27-C33. Rhizophora apiculata and Hevea brasiliensis wood smoke exhibited a weak odd to even carbon number predominance with carbon preference index (CPI) values greater than one whereas Melaleuca cajuputi wood smoke aerosols did not exhibit similar pattern with CPI obtained close to one. The results obtained also indicated that burning of these wood resulted in formation of PAHs compounds in their smoke aerosols with predominance of three to four rings PAHs over the two, five and lesser of six rings PAHs. PAH diagnostic ratios calculated except for Flan/(Flan+Py) and Indeno/(Indeno+BgP) were consistent with the ratios suggested for wood combustion source as reported in literatures. In the case of the latter, two diagnostic ratios, the values were generally lower than the range normally reported for wood combustion.
During fermentation cells are subjected to various kinds of stress. One of the stresses concerned is high osmotic environment, which cells need to encounter in order to continue growing. To understand how cells adapt to this stress condition, information from genome, proteome and metabolome levels are crucial. In yeast cells, it was report that they produce glycerol to avoid depletion of water in the cell that could lead to cell shrinkage and eventually death. Thus, investigation of physiological responses were executed by shake flask method using three different Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains namely s288c, IFO2347 and FY834 which were grown in yeast potato dextrose (YPD) medium under the treatment of sodium chloride (NaCl) and sorbitol at 1M concentration to create the osmotic condition. These agents were added into the medium after 5 hours of fermentation when the cells reached exponential phase and carbon source is still available. The results proved that addition of both NaCl and sorbitol created the osmotic condition during growth resulted in higher accumulation of glycerol and trehalose when compared to the control in all strains. Among these strains, production of glycerol (g glycerol/g cell dry weight) was found highest in IFO2347, followed by s288c and FY834.
Recently we have reported on standard MAP and generalized Jacobi Elliptic monopole-antimonopole pair (MAP) solutions of the SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs model. Here we apply Cho Abelian decomposition to the gauge potential of these MAP solutions. It is shown that the point singularities at the locations of the monopole (antimonopole), that comes from the restricted part, are removed by the unrestricted valence potential. We also consider the effect of decomposition upon energy and magnetic charge density for the cases of standard MAP and generalized Jacobi elliptic MAP solutions, under the conditions of vanishing (λ = 0) and non vanishing (λ = 1) Higgs potential.
Academic procrastination is prevalent among university undergraduates and it affects students’ wellbeing and academic performance. Procrastination has become a concerning phenomenon in recent years and is not taken seriously. As self- regulation is one of the predictors of academic achievement among undergraduates it is often linked to procrastination. Thus, this study aimed to investigate if there are gender differences in self- regulation and procrastination and whether there is a relationship between self- regulation and procrastination among 287 undergraduates from four different private universities in Malaysia. Data were collected using self-report survey with convenience sampling method. The Short Self- Regulation Questionnaire (Carey, Neal, & Collins, 2004) was used to measure self-regulation while procrastination was measured using Tuckman Procrastination Scale (Yockey, 2016). Results of t-test analyses showed that there is no significant gender difference in both self-regulation and procrastination. Moderate significant negative relationship was found between self-regulation and procrastination. Hence the findings reflect that self-regulation could predict procrastination where students with high self-regulation will tend to procrastinate less. Therefore, self-regulation strategies and interventions should be taught to undergraduates in order to further enhance their self-efficacy as well as to have intrinsic motivation to be more goal-directed which could be aimed to reduce academic procrastination.