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  1. Fulltext Corn cobs and sugar cane waste as a viscosivier in drilling fluid
    Ahmad Zakuan Ahmad Azmi, Mohd. Saaid, Irawan, Sonny
    Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2009;17(1):-.
    MyJurnal
    The present project investigated the potential of utilizing corncobs and sugar cane waste as viscosivier in drilling fluid. For this purpose, the synthetic-based drilling fluid, Sarapar 147, was used as the base fluid. Both the materials were subjected to pre-treatment of drying, dehumidifying, grinding and sieving process prior to rheological tests. The rheological tests were conducted in accordance with the API 13B specifications to measure mud density, plastic viscosity, yield point, 10-second and 10-minute gel strength. The study found that plastic viscosity and yield point had a direct relationship with the amount of materials added. To drill fluid additive with corn cobs, the density, plastic viscosity and yield point were increased when the amount of additives were increased. Based on these experiments, both additives were found to have the potential to be used as additive in drilling fluid. In particular, they were able to improve its rheological properties by increasing the density, plastic viscosity and yield point. The suitable concentration for the corn cobs and sugar cane is 6.45 lb/bbl and 9.43 lb/bbl, respectively.
  2. Fulltext Age estimation from mandibles in Malay: A 2D geometric morphometric analysis
    Zulkifli NAF, Mohd Saaid NAS, Alias A, Mohamed Ibrahim N, Woon CK, Kurniawan A, et al.
    J Taibah Univ Med Sci, 2023 Dec;18(6):1435-1445.
    PMID: 38162871 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtumed.2023.05.020
    OBJECTIVES: In this study, the sizes and forms of mandibles in various age groups of the Malay population were measured and compared.

    METHODS: Geometric morphometric (GM) analysis of mandibles from 400 dental panoramic tomography (DPT) specimens was conducted. The MorphoJ program was used to perform generalized Procrustes analysis (GPA), Procrustes ANOVA, principal component analysis (PCA), discriminant function analysis (DFA), and canonical variate analysis (CVA). In the tpsDig2 program, the 27 landmarks were applied to the DPT radiographs. Variations in mandibular size and form were categorized into four age groups: group 1 (15-24 years), group 2 (25-34 years), group 3 (35-44 years), and group 4 (45-54 years).

    RESULTS: The diversity in mandibular shape among the first eight principal components was 81%. Procrustes ANOVA revealed significant shape differences (P 

  3. Fulltext Performance of direct-from-blood-culture disk diffusion antibiotic susceptibility testing and its impact on antibiotic adjustment in bloodstream infections at a Malaysian tertiary center
    Lau CL, Ramli R, Periyasamy P, Tan TL, Neoh H-m, Yusof AM, et al.
    Microbiol Spectr, 2025 Aug 05;13(8):e0286324.
    PMID: 40530860 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.02863-24
    Delayed antibiotics increase mortality in bloodstream infection (BSI). Direct-from-blood-culture disk diffusion antibiotic susceptibility testing (dAST) forecasts susceptibility earlier than conventional susceptibility testing (cAST). The study aimed to evaluate dAST performance and its impact on antibiotic adjustment in BSI. In this Malaysian single-center prospective study, dAST was performed and interpreted according to breakpoints by Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. The turnaround time (TAT), categorical agreements (CA), and predictive values of dAST for susceptibility by cAST were determined among positive blood cultures (PBC) between November 2022 and November 2023. The active and WHO AWaRe antibiotics administered before and after dAST results were compared. Of the 318 PBCs, the median of TAT was earlier than cAST by 35 hours. The CA for 3,561 organism-antibiotics combinations was 91.5%, with 3.6% very major errors (VME), 3.3% major errors (ME), and 5.2% minor errors (mE). The dAST achieved CA above 90% for Staphylococcus aureus with cefoxitin (98.5%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa with ceftazidime (100%), and Acinetobacter baumannii with ampicillin/sulbactam (100%). For Enterobacterales, most combinations were above 90%, including ampicillin (95.1%), ceftriaxone (95.7%), and meropenem (95.7%), though those of the aminopenicillin/inhibitor combinations were above 80%. Most errors were attributed to mEs. Among 159 BSI, the prescribing of active antibiotics improved significantly following dAST (73.0% versus 89.3%, P < 0.001) but not WHO Access antibiotics (35.8% versus 35.2%, P = 0.188). dAST had good CAs for most antibiotics, allowing earlier improvement in active antibiotics. The modest change in WHO Access antibiotics prescribing reveals practice gaps in need of antimicrobial stewardship.

    IMPORTANCE: Global deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance are rising. Hence, rapid susceptibility testing is essential for timely antibiotic de-escalation to mitigate antimicrobial resistance (AMR) development from exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics. Compared to the costly advanced technology, direct disk diffusion from blood culture (diffusion antibiotic susceptibility testing [dAST]) is an affordable method that can be quickly adopted. However, the reliability of dAST in informing susceptibility was mainly reported from Western countries and scarcely from other regions, including Southeast Asia, where the AMR burden is high. This study from Malaysia adds insights into the performance of dAST and the potential to apply it in similar resource-limited settings from the same region. Furthermore, assessing the dAST's influence on antibiotic prescribing identifies the gap in implementation to guide areas of improvement for optimizing clinical utility.

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