Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are one of the main occupational health hazards affecting dental practitioners. This study was conducted to assess the prevalence of Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorder (WMSD) amongst dental students. Possible correlations with the working environment and ergonomics taught in Malaysian dental schools were also sought.
This study aims to identify the influencing factor towards the intention to donate blood using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model among healthcare workers (HCWs). A random sample of 400 HCWs from the population received the survey via a web-based link. The hypothesised model was tested using structural equation modelling. The median (interquartile range) age of respondents was 31.0 (11.0) years with female accounting for 75.5% (n = 302). Overall, 60.3% (n = 241) have donated blood. The final structural model showed a good fit of the data: CFI = 0.972; TLI = 0.976; RMSEA = 0.052; SRMR = 0.064. Perceived behavioural control and age significantly influenced the HCW's intention to donate blood. The final model explained 43% of the total variance in intention to donate blood. The findings provide a vital message to focus on some barriers and motivational factors of blood donation behaviour among HCWs.
Epiregulin (EPR) is a novel member of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) family. It has been shown to promote wound healing in oral epithelium, enhance proliferation of other epithelial tissues, and is involved in several epithelial-related malignancies such as colorectal, lung, and bladder carcinoma. More recently, EPR transcripts were found to be high in a study on archival oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) specimens. This implies that EPR may be responsible for the progression of OSCC. The aim of this was to elucidate the effects of EPR on (i) cell morphological changes, (ii) cell proliferation and (iii) receptor expression of the H-series OSCC cell lines.
In this study, salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction (SALLE) as a simple and efficient extraction technique followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was employed for the determination of vitamin D3 in milk samples. The sample treatment is based on the use of water-miscible acetonitrile as the extractant and acetonitrile phase separation under high-salt conditions. Under the optimum conditions, acetonitrile and ammonium sulfate were used as the extraction solvent and salting-out agent, respectively. The vitamin D3 extract was separated using Hypersil ODS (250x i.d 4.6 mm, 5 µm) HPLC column that was coupled with diode array detector. Vitamin D2 was used as internal standard (IS) to offset any variations in chromatographic conditions. The vitamin D3 and the IS were eluted in 18 min. Good linearity (r2 > 0.99) was obtained within the range of 25-600 ng g-1 with the limit of detection of 15 ng g-1 and limit of quantification of 25 ng g-1. The validated method was applied for the determination of vitamin D3 in milk samples. The recoveries for spiked samples were from 94.4 to 113.5%.