Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 56 in total

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  1. Omar N, Salleh R
    Saudi J Ophthalmol, 2009 Oct;23(3-4):219-20.
    PMID: 23960864 DOI: 10.1016/j.sjopt.2009.10.007
    The aim of this report is to describe the presentation and management of eyelid injury resulting from the hook of a rubber string. A seven-year-old boy presented with pain of the right upper eyelid. A rubber string with metal hook ends, snatched his right eye from below. The hook pierced through his upper eyelid from the conjunctival surface and remained in situ. However, there was no globe laceration noted. Removal was performed by reverse-tracking of the hook through the wound. The wound was stitched with 6'0 Vicryl sutures. Healing was excellent with minimal scarring.
  2. Ali, M. H., Ismail, A., Alam, S. S., Makhbul, Z. M., Omar, N. A.
    MyJurnal
    The aim of this paper is to revisit the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in relation to the halal food market, specifically in the context of the Cadbury scandal. The present survey (with 132 respondents) replicates the original study of TPB in the context of halal food, done before the scandal, and the results are compared. We rationalize the differences, and assess the impact of the halal scandal on consumer purchasing behaviour. In doing so, we validate the impact of a food scandal in terms of the purchasing intentions of halal customers under a new (post-scandal) condition of uncertainty. The results provide in-depth insights into halal purchasing behaviour and are intended to be used: (a) to increase the understanding of the impact of a food scandal on purchasing behaviour, (b) to clarify whether a food scandal has a real effect on customers, and (c) to ascertain whether the determinants of purchasing intention are similar before and after a food scandal.
  3. Omar, N. A., Praveena, S. M., Hashim, Z., Aris, A. Z.
    MyJurnal
    Rice is a carbohydrate, one of the plant-based foods that can accumulate heavy metal from soil and the irrigation water. Since total heavy metal always overestimates the amount of heavy metal available in rice, bioavailability of heavy metal is always preferred. Many studies have been done and found that in vitro methods offer an appealing alternative to human and animal studies. They can be simple, rapid, low in cost and may provide insights which not achievable in the in vivo studies. In vitro digestion model for rice may differ from other in vitro digestion models applied in soil or other type of foods studies. This review aims to provide an overview of in vitro digestion model used to determine bioavailability of heavy metal in rice, summarize health risk assessment application of heavy metal in rice studies and highlight the importance of health risk assessment to be included in the studies. Future exploration of in vitro digestion model and health risk assessment application on the bioavailability of heavy metal in rice was also suggested.
  4. Mohammed M, Omar N
    PLoS One, 2020;15(3):e0230442.
    PMID: 32191738 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230442
    The assessment of examination questions is crucial in educational institutes since examination is one of the most common methods to evaluate students' achievement in specific course. Therefore, there is a crucial need to construct a balanced and high-quality exam, which satisfies different cognitive levels. Thus, many lecturers rely on Bloom's taxonomy cognitive domain, which is a popular framework developed for the purpose of assessing students' intellectual abilities and skills. Several works have been proposed to automatically handle the classification of questions in accordance with Bloom's taxonomy. Most of these works classify questions according to specific domain. As a result, there is a lack of technique of classifying questions that belong to the multi-domain areas. The aim of this paper is to present a classification model to classify exam questions based on Bloom's taxonomy that belong to several areas. This study proposes a method for classifying questions automatically, by extracting two features, TFPOS-IDF and word2vec. The purpose of the first feature was to calculate the term frequency-inverse document frequency based on part of speech, in order to assign a suitable weight for essential words in the question. The second feature, pre-trained word2vec, was used to boost the classification process. Then, the combination of these features was fed into three different classifiers; K-Nearest Neighbour, Logistic Regression, and Support Vector Machine, in order to classify the questions. The experiments used two datasets. The first dataset contained 141 questions, while the other dataset contained 600 questions. The classification result for the first dataset achieved an average of 71.1%, 82.3% and 83.7% weighted F1-measure respectively. The classification result for the second dataset achieved an average of 85.4%, 89.4% and 89.7% weighted F1-measure respectively. The finding from this study showed that the proposed method is significant in classifying questions from multiple domains based on Bloom's taxonomy.
  5. Omar N, Lim TS
    Methods Mol Biol, 2018;1701:25-44.
    PMID: 29116498 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7447-4_2
    This protocol describes the processes involved in the generation of human antibody libraries in Fab format. The antibody repertoire is derived from peripheral blood mononucleocytes focusing on different immunoglobulin isotypes. A two-step cloning process was used to generate a diverse human Fab library for subsequent selection by phage display. The method can be applied for the generation of both naive and immune antibody libraries. The naive repertoire allows for the library to be applied for the generation of human monoclonal antibodies against a broad range of target antigens making it a useful resource for antibody generation. However, the immune repertoire will be focused against target antigens from a particular disease. The protocol will focus on the generation of the library including the panning process.
  6. Praveena SM, Omar NA
    Food Chem, 2017 Nov 15;235:203-211.
    PMID: 28554627 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2017.05.049
    Heavy metal in rice studies has attracted a greater concern worldwide. However, there have been limited studies on marketed rice samples although it represents a vital ingestion portion for a real estimation of human health risk. This study was aimed to determine both total and bioaccessible of trace elements and heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Co, Al, Zn, As, Pb and Fe) in 22 varieties of cooked rice using an inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy. Both total and bioaccessible of trace elements and heavy metals were digested using closed-nitric acid digestion and Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM) in vitro digestion model, respectively. Human health risks via Health Risk Assessment (HRA) were conducted to understand exposure risks involving adults and children representing Malaysian population. Zinc was the highest while As was the lowest contents for total and in their bioavailable forms. Four clusters were identified: (1) Pb, As, Co, Cd and Cr; (2) Cu and Al; (3) Fe and (4) Zn. For HRA, there was no any risks found from single element exposure. While potential carcinogenic health risks present for both adult and children from single As exposure (Life time Cancer Risk, LCR>1×10(-4)). Total Hazard Quotient values for adult and children were 27.0 and 18.0, respectively while total LCR values for adult and children were 0.0049 and 0.0032, respectively.
  7. Abed SA, Tiun S, Omar N
    PLoS One, 2015;10(9):e0136614.
    PMID: 26422368 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0136614
    Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is the task of determining which sense of an ambiguous word (word with multiple meanings) is chosen in a particular use of that word, by considering its context. A sentence is considered ambiguous if it contains ambiguous word(s). Practically, any sentence that has been classified as ambiguous usually has multiple interpretations, but just one of them presents the correct interpretation. We propose an unsupervised method that exploits knowledge based approaches for word sense disambiguation using Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) based on a Stanford dependencies generator (HSDG). The role of the dependency generator is to parse sentences to obtain their dependency relations. Whereas, the goal of using the HSA is to maximize the overall semantic similarity of the set of parsed words. HSA invokes a combination of semantic similarity and relatedness measurements, i.e., Jiang and Conrath (jcn) and an adapted Lesk algorithm, to perform the HSA fitness function. Our proposed method was experimented on benchmark datasets, which yielded results comparable to the state-of-the-art WSD methods. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the dependency generator, we perform the same methodology without the parser, but with a window of words. The empirical results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to produce effective solutions for most instances of the datasets used.
  8. Omar N, Bou Chacra CT, Tabbara KF
    Clin Ophthalmol, 2013;7:1311-8.
    PMID: 23847410 DOI: 10.2147/OPTH.S43719
    BACKGROUND: The aim of this work was to describe the indications, complications, and outcomes of penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) in Saudi Arabia.
    METHODS: In a retrospective, noncomparative interventional case series, the medical records of patients who underwent PKP from January 2000 to December 2008 and had a minimum follow-up of 6 months were reviewed. All corneas were obtained from eye banks in the US. Indications, complications, and outcomes of surgery were recorded. This study was approved by the institutional review board.
    RESULTS: Eighty-five consecutive eyes were included in this study. There were 52 (61.2%) males and 33 (38.8%) females. The median age was 35.0 years (range 3-85 years), and the median follow-up period was 24 months (range 6-108 months). The indications for PKP were keratoconus, bullous keratopathy, corneal scars, corneal dystrophy, and corneal regraft. The overall graft survival time was 88.9 months ± 4.9 months (mean ± standard error of mean, 95% confidence interval [CI] 79.4 months -98.4 months) while the 3-year and 5-year cumulative survival rates were 90.7% and 84.3%, respectively. Surgical indication (P = 0.038), immune rejection (P < 0.001), preoperative corneal vascularization (P = 0.022), and perioperative high intraocular pressure (P = 0.032) were associated significantly with corneal graft failure in univariate analysis. Multivariate analysis reduced these significant associations to rejection (P < 0.001) and vascularization (P = 0.009). Relative risk for failure in rejected cornea was 16.22 (95% CI 4.99-52.69) and in vascularized cornea was 3.89 (95% CI 1.36-11.09). At last visit following PKP, 34 (40%) eyes had best spectacle-corrected visual acuity of 20/40 or better, and 51 (60.0%) eyes had 20/80 or better. Best spectacle-corrected visual acuity was worse than 20/400 in 15 (17.6%) eyes.
    CONCLUSION: The overall corneal graft survival in a private setting in Saudi Arabia can be excellent. Thorough preoperative evaluation and comprehensive postoperative management are crucial for successful corneal transplantation. A larger multicenter study is recommended to portray the outcome of private corneal transplantation in Saudi Arabia in general.
    KEYWORDS: bullous keratopathy; cornea; corneal dystrophy; corneal scars; corneal transplantation; herpetic keratitis; keratoconus
  9. Omar N, Ismail CAN, Long I
    Front Pharmacol, 2021;12:805854.
    PMID: 35082680 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2021.805854
    Diabetes mellitus and its consequences continue to put a significant demand on medical resources across the world. Diabetic neuropathic pain (DNP) is a frequent diabetes mellitus chronic microvascular outcome. Allodynia, hyperalgesia, and aberrant or lack of nerve fibre sensation are all symptoms of DNP. These clinical characteristics will lead to worse quality of life, sleep disruption, depression, and increased mortality. Although the availability of numerous medications that alleviate the symptoms of DNP, the lack of long-term efficacy and unfavourable side effects highlight the urgent need for novel treatment strategies. This review paper systematically analysed the preclinical research on the treatment of DNP using plant phytochemicals that contain only tannins. A total of 10 original articles involved in in-vivo and in-vitro experiments addressing the promising benefits of phytochemical tannins on DNP were examined between 2008 and 2021. The information given implies that these phytochemicals may have relevant pharmacological effects on DNP symptoms through their antihyperalgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties; however, because of the limited sample size and limitations of the studies conducted so far, we were unable to make definitive conclusions. Before tannins may be employed as therapeutic agents for DNP, more study is needed to establish the specific molecular mechanism for all of these activities along the pain pathway and examine the side effects of tannins in the treatment of DNP.
  10. Sohag K, Husain S, Hammoudeh S, Omar N
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2021 Jul;28(27):36004-36017.
    PMID: 33686598 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-13326-6
    Within a framework that includes economic activity, real interest rate, grants, and subsidies, we aim to explore the role of renewable energy, technological innovation, and particularly the environmentally damaging militarization in driving green growth, which fosters sustainable economic growth by ensuring the values of natural assets, considering OECD countries. Our examination affirms a positive proposition between the development of renewable energy, technological innovation, and green growth in the long run by implementing the cross-sectional dependency panel autoregressive-distributed lags (CS-ARDL) framework in a dynamic heterogeneous panel setting. The findings also suggest that militarization is antagonistic to green growth. Our decomposed analysis is compatible with our premier analysis, indicating a conducive impact of both biomass and non-biomass types of renewable energy on green growth. We also document a negative association between the real interest rate (RIR) and green growth, while income muddles the results. The robustness tests confirm the sensitivity of our main findings to the magnitude of the subsidies and grants provided to renewable energy. The paper concludes with several policy recommendations.
  11. Saker S, El-Kholany N, El-Gendy A, Fadhil ON, Maria OM
    J Prosthet Dent, 2014 Apr 22.
    PMID: 24767901 DOI: 10.1016/j.prosdent.2013.07.030
    This article has been withdrawn at the request of the author(s) and/or editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.
  12. Loh Q, Omar N, Glökler J, Lim TS
    Anal Biochem, 2014 Oct 15;463:67-9.
    PMID: 24972268 DOI: 10.1016/j.ab.2014.06.012
    Immunoassays are often coupled to peroxidase activity for antigen detection. Sensitivity and speed of detection has been increased by the advent of hybrid methods such as immuno-PCR (polymerase chain reaction). However, a more simplified immunoassay that retains both colorimetric peroxidase detection and effective DNA amplification in a setting closer to field application conditions has been nonexistent. Here we describe a method that successfully combines a competitive immunoassay with the new isothermal quadruplex-primed amplification (QPA) to generate excess quadruplex reporter molecules with intrinsic peroxidase DNAzyme activity.
  13. Omar N, Abidin FZ, Das S, Abd Ghafar N, Haji Suhaimi F, Abd Latiff A, et al.
    Morphologie, 2010 May;94(305):36-9.
    PMID: 20359930 DOI: 10.1016/j.morpho.2010.03.001
    The latissimus dorsi is a muscle of the back which forms the posterior fold of the axilla and its tendon twists to insert into the floor of the intertubercular sulcus of the humerus. Occasionally, the muscle has a muscular slip which crosses the axilla to insert into the pectoralis major. This muscular slip is often termed as "axillary arch." In the present study, we report bilateral axillary arch detected in a 45-year-old male cadaver. The average vertical length of the axillary arch measured 7 cm. The average maximum width of the uppermost, middle and lower part of the arch measured 2, 3.5 and 3.2 cm, respectively. The presence of the axillary arch is an uncommon finding in humans, considering the fact that it is solely found in the animals who prefer to hang on the trees. A histological study of the axillary arch was also performed and it showed skeletal muscle fibres which was uniformly arranged. The presence of the axillary arch may assist in the adduction of the shoulder. It may also compress the axillary vessels and nerves thereby causing resultant symptoms. Prior anatomical knowledge of the presence of axillary arch may be helpful for surgeons performing radical dissection of the axillary lymph nodes and ligation of axillary vessels, clinicians diagnosing abduction syndromes and interventional radiologists interpreting axillary mass in day to day clinical practice.
  14. Omar NS, Tan PC, Sabir N, Yusop ES, Omar SZ
    BJOG, 2013 Feb;120(3):338-45.
    PMID: 23145957 DOI: 10.1111/1471-0528.12054
    To evaluate the effect of suggesting coitus as a safe and effective means to expedite labour on pregnancy duration and requirement for labour induction.
  15. Omar NA, Praveena SM, Aris AZ, Hashim Z
    Food Chem, 2015 Dec 1;188:46-50.
    PMID: 26041162 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2015.04.087
    Little is known about the bioavailability of heavy metal contamination and its health risks after rice ingestion. This study aimed to determine bioavailability of heavy metal (As, Cd, Cu, Cr, Co, Al, Fe, Zn and Pb) concentrations in cooked rice and human Health Risk Assessment (HRA). The results found Zn was the highest (4.3±0.1 mg/kg), whereas As showed the lowest (0.015±0.001 mg/kg) bioavailability of heavy metal concentration in 22 varieties of cooked rice. For single heavy metal exposure, no potential of non carcinogenic health risks was found, while carcinogenic health risks were found only for As. Combined heavy metal exposures found that total Hazard Quotient (HQtotal) values for adult were higher than the acceptable range (HQTotal<1), whereas total Lifetime Cancer Risk (LCRTotal) values were higher than the acceptable range (LCRTotal values >1×10(-4)) for both adult and children. This study is done to understand that the inclusion of bioavailability heavy metal into HRA produces a more realistic estimation of human heavy metal exposure.
  16. Nik Ramli NN, Omar N, Husin A, Ismail Z, Siran R
    Neurosci Lett, 2015 Feb 19;588:137-41.
    PMID: 25562631 DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2014.12.062
    Glutamate receptors are the integral cellular components associated with excitotoxicity mechanism induced by the ischemic cascade events. Therefore the glutamate receptors have become the major molecular targets of neuroprotective agents in stroke researches. Recent studies have demonstrated that a Group I metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist, (S)-3,5-dihydroxyphenylglycine ((S)-3,5-DHPG) preconditioning elicits neuroprotection in the hippocampal slice cultures exposed to toxic level of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA). We further investigated the preconditioning effects of (S)-3,5-DHPG on acute ischemic stroke rats. One 10 or 100μM of (S)-3,5-DHPG was administered intrathecally to Sprague-Dawley adult male rats, 2h prior to induction of acute ischemic stroke by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). After 24h, neurological deficits were evaluated by modified stroke severity scores and grid-walking test. All rats were sacrificed and infarct volumes were determined by 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining. The serum level of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) of each rat was analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). One and 10μM of (S)-3,5-DHPG preconditioning in the stroke rats showed significant improvements in motor impairment (P<0.01), reduction in the infarct volume (P<0.01) and reduction in the NSE serum level (P<0.01) compared to the control stroke rats. We conclude that 1 and 10μM (S)-3,5-DHPG preconditioning induced protective effects against acute ischemic insult in vivo.
  17. Omar N, Lokanathan Y, Mohd Razi ZR, Bt Haji Idrus R
    BMC Complement Altern Med, 2019 Jul 08;19(1):167.
    PMID: 31286956 DOI: 10.1186/s12906-019-2581-x
    BACKGROUND: Centella asiatica (L.) Urban, known as Indian Pennywort, is a tropical medicinal plant from Apiaceae family native to Southeast Asian countries. It has been widely used as a nerve tonic in Ayuverdic medicine since ancient times. However, whether it can substitute for neurotrophic factors to induce human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSCs) differentiation into the neural lineage remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a raw extract of C. asiatica (L.) (RECA) on the neural differentiation of hMSCs in vitro.

    METHODS: The hMSCs derived from human Wharton's jelly umbilical cord (hWJMSCs; n = 6) were treated with RECA at different concentrations; 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 2000 and 2400 μg/ml. The cytotoxicity of RECA was evaluated via the MTT (3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazolyl-2)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and cell proliferation assays. The hWJMSCs were then induced to neural lineage for 9 days either with RECA alone or RECA in combination with neurotrophic factors (NF). Cell morphological changes were observed under an inverted microscope, while the expression of the neural markers S100β, p75 NGFR, MBP, GFAP and MOG was analyzed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunocytochemistry. The cell cycle profile of differentiated and undifferentiated hWJMSCs was investigated through cell cycle analysis.

    RESULTS: RECA exerted effects on both proliferation and neural differentiation of hWJMSCs in a dose-dependent manner. RECA reduced the proliferation of hWJMSCs and was cytotoxic to cells above 1600 μg/ml, with IC50 value, 1875 ± 55.67 μg/ml. In parallel with the reduction in cell viability, cell enlargement was also observed at the end of the induction. Cells treated with RECA alone had more obvious protein expression of the neural markers compared to the other groups. Meanwhile, gene expression of the aforementioned markers was detected at low levels across the experimental groups. The supplementation of hWJMSCs with RECA did not change the normal life cycle of the cells.

    CONCLUSIONS: Although RECA reduced the proliferation of hWJMSCs, a low dose of RECA (400 μg/ml), alone or in combination of neurotrophic factors (NF + RECA 400 μg/ml), has the potential to differentiate hWJMSCs into Schwann cells and other neural lineage cells.

  18. Abubakar SA, Isa MM, Omar N, Tan SW
    Mol Med Rep, 2020 Dec;22(6):4931-4937.
    PMID: 33174018 DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2020.11560
    The human ocular surface produces highly conserved cationic peptides. Human β‑defensins (HBDs) serve an important role in innate and adaptive immunity. They are primarily expressed in epithelial cells in response to infection and provide the first line of defence against invading microbes. Defensin β1 (DEFB1) is constitutively expressed and regulated by inflammatory mediators including interferon‑γ, lipopolysaccharide and peptidoglycans. DEFB4A is locally induced in response to microbial infection while DEFB109 is induced via Toll‑like receptor 2. The present study examined the expression of the HBD DEFB1, DEFB4A and DEFB109 genes in pterygium. The pterygium tissues and normal conjunctiva samples were obtained from 18 patients undergoing pterygium surgery. The reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction method was employed to determine the expression of DEFB1, DEFB4A and DEFB109 genes. The results revealed that the expression of DEFB1 and DEFB4A was significantly higher and upregulated in pterygium samples when compared with normal conjunctiva samples from each patient (P<0.05), while the expression of DEFB109 was observed to be lower in pterygium samples when compared with normal samples from the same patient. Previous studies have revealed that DEFB1 and DEFB4A genes are present in low concentrations inside the human eye, and they are upregulated during the maturation of keratinocytes, suggesting a possible role in cell differentiation. The DEFB109 gene is present in higher concentrations inside the human eye, though it is newly discovered. It has also been reported that DEFB1 may be involved in carcinogenesis epithelial tumours. Collectively, the current data suggests that HBDs may serve a crucial role in the pathogenesis and development of pterygia, and thus may be considered as novel molecular targets in understanding pterygia development.
  19. Otegbayo BE, Omar N, Danaee M, Mohajer S, Aghamohamadi N
    BMC Womens Health, 2023 Jul 21;23(1):383.
    PMID: 37480050 DOI: 10.1186/s12905-023-02520-y
    BACKGROUND: Teenage pregnancies continue to disrupt teenage girls' academic development. As a result, teenage mothers are at risk of unemployment, maternal death, and poverty. Previous research, however, has shown that both individual and environmental factors can have a significant impact on the prevalence of adolescent pregnancy. However, there has been little rigorous research on the impact of these factors on pregnant students' academic performance.

    OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between environmental (neighbourhood) and individuals (sexual attitudes, peer attachment) factors. It also examined the influence of individual factors on the academic performance of pregnant teens.

    METHODS: The study included a cross-sectional study of 400 pregnant adolescent students aged 15-19 years. The target groups were drawn from three major cities in Nigeria. Respondents were identified through targeted snowballing. Pregnant participants were a combination of married and unmarried girls attending school from home. Data were collected using a structured and self-completed questionnaire. Thus, frequency, mean and standard deviation were used for descriptive analysis. Pearson correlation analysis was applied to show the relationship between variables.

    RESULTS: The study found that neighbourhood (r=-.125, p = .12) had a negative and significant relationship with peer attachment. However, there was no significant evidence of a relationship between sexual attitudes and neighbourhood (r=-.040, p = .422). There was, however, a significant relationship between sexual attitudes and academic performance (r = .236, p = .000). There was also a relationship between peer attachment and academic performance (r=-.401, p = 

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