INTRODUCTION: None of the quantitative scales for public attitudes toward epilepsy had been translated to Malay language. This study aimed to translate and test the validity and reliability of a Malay version of the Public Attitudes Toward Epilepsy (PATE) scale.
METHOD: The translation was performed according to standard principles and tested in 140 Malay-speaking adults aged more than 18 years for psychometric validation.
RESULTS: The items in each domain had similar standard deviations (equal item variance), ranging from 0.90 to 1.00 in the personal domain and from 0.87 to 1.23 in the general domain. The correlation between an item and its domain was 0.4 and above for all items and was higher than the correlation with the other domain. Multitrait analysis showed that the Malay PATE had a similar variance, floor and ceiling effects, and relative relationship between the domains as the original PATE. The Malay PATE scale showed a similar correlation with almost all demographic variables except age. Item means were generally clustered in the factor analysis as the hypothesized domains, except those for items 1 and 2. The Cronbach's α values were within acceptable range (0.757 and 0.716 for the general and personal domains, respectively).
CONCLUSION: The Malay PATE scale is a validated and reliable translated version for measuring public attitudes toward epilepsy.
A quantitative scale of public attitudes toward epilepsy is essential to determine the magnitude of social stigma against epilepsy. This study aims to develop and validate a cross-culturally applicable scale of public attitudes toward epilepsy.
The genus Molpa Walker was previously considered to be disjunctly distributed in broad-leaf rain forests in India and Malaysia. Here we report one new species Molpa dulongensis sp. nov. from subtropic broad-leaf rain forests in southwestern Yunnan Province in China. This is a part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot area. So we can infer that Molpa is continuously distributed in broad-leaf rain forests found in Oriental Region. Redescription of the genus Molpa and description of the new species Molpa dulongensis sp. nov. are provided. The types are deposited in Insect Collection of Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (IZCAS).
Water availability needs to be accurately assessed to understand and effectively manage hydrologic environments. However, the estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) is prone to errors due to the complex interactions that occur between the atmosphere, the Earth's surface, and vegetation cover. This paper proposes a novel approach for analyzing the sources of inaccuracy in estimating the annual ET using the Budyko framework (BF), particularly temporal variability in precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (EP), runoff (R), and the change in soil storage (ΔS). Error decomposition is employed to determine the individual contributions of P, R, EP, and ΔS to the ET error variance at 12 locations in the state of Illinois using a dataset covering a 22-year period. To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first BF-based investigation that considers R in the error decomposition of the predicted ET variance. The ET error variance increases with the variance in the P and R in Illinois and decreases with the covariance between these two variables. In addition, when accounting for ΔS in the BF, the scenario in which ΔS affects the total available water (i.e., P) is reliable, with a low prediction error and a 13.87 % lower root mean square error compared with the scenario in which the effect of ΔS is negligible. We thus recommend the inclusion of ΔS and R as key variables in the BF to improve water budget estimations.
The problem of blood transshipment and allocation in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic has many new characteristics, such as two-stage, trans-regional, and multi-modal transportation. Considering these new characteristics, we propose a novel multi-objective optimization model for the two-stage emergent blood transshipment-allocation. The objectives considered are to optimize the quality of transshipped blood, the satisfaction of blood demand, and the overall cost including shortage penalty. An improved integer encoded hybrid multi-objective whale optimization algorithm (MOWOA) with greedy rules is then designed to solve the model. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our two-stage model is superior to one-stage optimization methods on all objectives. The degree of improvement ranges from 0.69 to 66.26%.
Students' attitudes toward epilepsy have been studied in several countries, but none of the studies used a quantitative scale. We aimed to determine the validity and reliability of the Public Attitudes Toward Epilepsy (PATE) scale in a homogenous population consisting of secondary and tertiary students in Malaysia and to quantify their attitudes toward epilepsy, using a web-based survey.
INTRODUCTION: There is a lack of study comparing the attitudes toward epilepsy between the teachers and general population, teachers and students, using a similar quantitative scale.
METHODS: This study was performed in one primary and one secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, using the Public Attitudes Toward Epilepsy (PATE) scale.
RESULTS: A total of 186 teachers aged 39.6±10.4 years completed the questionnaire. The mean scores in both personal and general domains of PATE scale were significantly better in the teachers, comparing to the scores in the secondary and college students reported in previous study (Lim et al., 2013; p<0.001 and <0.05, respectively). The mean scores in personal domain was significantly better in the teachers, comparing to the general population reported by Lim et al. (2012; p<0.001). This hold true when comparing teachers with general population with tertiary education, suggesting that the better attitude is specific to the job, rather than tertiary education generally. Subanalysis showed that the attitudes of teachers were significantly better than the general population and the students related to employment and social life, but were equally negative on issues directly related to education, such as placing children with epilepsy in regular classes.
CONCLUSION: Teachers had more positive attitudes toward epilepsy as compared with the general population with tertiary education. Attitude to epilepsy may differ specific to types of work.
BACKGROUND: Taking Sauropus androgynus, a Malaysian food, to reduce weight began as a fad in Taiwan in 1994. Some advocates of this fad developed pulmonary dysfunction. The aim of this study is to report the lung injury in patients taking Sauropus androgynus.
METHODS: From July 1995 to November 1995, we investigated 104 nonsmoking patients (one male and 103 females) with chest roentgenography, pulmonary function, test, and Technetium 99m-labeled diethylene triamine penta-acetate (Tc-99m DTPA) radioaerosol inhalation lung scintigraphy.
RESULTS: Among the 90 patients receiving Tc-99m DTPA inhalation lung scan, 46 (51.1%) patients had increased clearance of Tc-99m DTPA from lung and 20 (22.2%) patients had inhomogeneous deposition of the submicronic radioaerosol. Eighteen (18/100) patients had obstructive ventilatory impairment in pulmonary function test. Analyzing the results, we found that the patients with respiratory symptoms (n = 42) took more vegetables (p = 0.016), had increased clearance of Tc-99m DTPA (p = 0.010) and had lower FEV1 (p = 0.001), FEV1/FVC (p < 0.001), FEF25-75 (p = 0.001), VC (p = 0.002) and DLCO (p = 0.009) than the patients without respiratory symptoms (n = 62). FEV1 and FEV1/FVC were significantly reduced in patients with severe impairment of alveolar permeability. The cumulative dosage and duration of exposure were significantly associated with the reduction of FEV1 and FEV1/FVC.
CONCLUSION: The lung injury after taking Sauropus androgynus involves alveoli and/or small airways and is manifest as obstructive ventilatory impairment with inhomogeneous aerosol distribution and increased lung epithelial permeability.
The vehicular Internet of Things (IoT) comprises enabling technologies for a large number of important applications including collaborative autonomous driving and advanced transportation systems. Due to the mobility of vehicles, strict application requirements, and limited communication resources, the conventional centralized control fails to provide sufficient quality of service for connected vehicles, so a decentralized approach is required in the vicinity to satisfy the requirements of delay-sensitive and mission-critical applications. A decentralized system is also more resistant to the single point of failure problem and malicious attacks. Blockchain technology has been attracting great interest due to its capability of achieving a decentralized, transparent, and tamper-resistant system. There are many studies focusing on the use of blockchain in managing data and transactions in vehicular environments. However, the application of blockchain in vehicular environments also faces some technical challenges. In this paper, we first explain the fundamentals of blockchain and vehicular IoT. Then, we conduct a literature review on the existing research efforts of the blockchain for vehicular IoT by discussing the research problems and technical issues. After that, we point out some future research issues considering the characteristics of both blockchain and vehicular IoT.
Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted great attention owing to their excellent electrochemical properties, such as the high discharge voltage of 2.3 V, specific capacity of 1675 mA h g(-1) and energy density of 2600 Wh kg(-1). The widely used slurry made electrodes of Li-S batteries are plagued by the serious shuttle effect and insulating nature of sulfur. Herein, a reduced graphene oxide coated porous carbon nanofiber flexible paper (rGO@S-PCNP) was fabricated and directly used as an additive-free cathode for Li-S batteries. The results show that the rGO@S-PCNP is certified to be effective at relieving the shuttle effect and improving the conductivity, thus achieving high electrochemical performance. The rGO@S-PCNP composite with a sulfur content of 58.4 wt% delivers a high discharge capacity of 623.7 mA h g(-1) after 200 cycles at 0.1 C (1 C = 1675 mA g(-1)) with the average Coulombic efficiency of 97.1%. The excellent cyclability and high Coulombic efficiency indicate that the as-prepared rGO@S-PCNP composite paper can be a promising cathode for lithium-sulfur batteries, and is envisioned to have great potential in high energy density flexible power devices. This facile strategy brings great significance for large-scale industrial fabrication of flexible lithium-sulfur batteries.
Tin-based materials have been intensively studied as attractive candidates for high-capacity and long-cycle-life anodes in Li-ion batteries (LIBs) owing to their low cost and high energy density. However, they all suffer from severe structural decay during the lithium ion insertion/extraction process, which results in deterioration in the overall performance of the batteries. To mitigate this problem, we have synthesized a Mo-doped SnO2 nanostructure via a facile hydrothermal method, which then fragmented into ultrafine particles after dozens of cycles. The fracture-resistant size and ample contact with Super-P and Li2O greatly improved the electrochemical kinetics and cyclability to deliver a reversible capacity of 670 mA h g-1 after 700 cycles, which demonstrated the potential suitability of Mo-doped SnO2 nanoparticles as a long-cycle-life anode material. Then, the compounds were uniformly dispersed in carbon nanofibers and reduced in situ to prepare a free-standing anode via electrospinning and carbonization. When used directly as an anode in LIBs (without a polymeric binder or conductive agent, as well as a current collector), the nanofiber membrane anode delivered comparable cycling performance and capacity to that of a slurry-coated electrode.
Topological defect nucleation and boundary branching in crystal growth on a curved surface are two typical elastic instabilities driven by curvature induced stress, and have usually been discussed separately in the past. In this work they are simultaneously considered during crystal growth on a sphere. Phase diagrams with respect to sphere radius, size, edge energy and stiffness of the crystal for the equilibrium crystal morphologies are achieved by theoretical analysis and validated by Brownian dynamics simulations. The simulation results further demonstrate the detail of morphological evolution governed by these two different stress relaxation modes. Topological defect nucleation and boundary branching not only compete with each other but also coexist in a range of combinations of factors. Clarification of the interaction mechanism provides a better understanding of various curved crystal morphologies for their potential applications.
Sebaceous gland diseases are a group of common dermatological diseases with multiple causes. To date, a systematic report of the risk factors for sebaceous gland diseases in adolescents has not been published. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and risk factors for certain sebaceous gland diseases (seborrhea, seborrheic dermatitis, acne, androgenetic alopecia and rosacea) and their relationship to gastrointestinal dysfunction in adolescents. From August-October, 2002-2005, a questionnaire survey was carried out to obtain epidemiological data about sebaceous gland diseases. Using random cluster sampling, 13 215 Han adolescents aged 12-20 years were recruited from four countries or districts (Macau; Guangzhou, China; Malaysia; and Indonesia). The statistical software SPSS ver. 13.0 was used to analyze the data. The prevalence of seborrhea, seborrheic dermatitis, acne, androgenetic alopecia and rosacea was 28.27%, 10.17%, 51.03%, 1.65% and 0.97%, respectively. Based on multivariate logistic regression analysis, the risk factors for sebaceous gland diseases included: age; duration of local residency; halitosis; gastric reflux; abdominal bloating; constipation; sweet food; spicy food; family history of acne; late night sleeping on a daily basis; excessive axillary, body and facial hair; excessive periareolar hair; and anxiety. There was a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms (halitosis; gastric reflux; abdominal bloating; constipation) between patients with and without sebaceous gland diseases (chi(2) = 150.743; P = 0.000). Gastrointestinal dysfunction is an important risk factor for diseases of the sebaceous glands and is correlated with their occurrence and development.
The effect of melatonin treatment on the carotenoid metabolism in broccoli florets during storage was explored. The results indicated that 100 µmol/L of melatonin maintained the sensory quality of broccoli florets, which retarded the increase of the L* value and the decrease of the H value. Melatonin treatment increased the activities of tryptophan decarboxylase (TDC), tryptamine 5-hydroxylase (T5H), serotonin N-acetyltransferase (SNAT) and N-acetylserotonin methyltransferase (ASMT), leading to the enrichment of endogenous melatonin content in broccoli florets. Meanwhile, the treatment inhibited the concentrations of β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, zeaxanthin and lutein, which was beneficial in delaying the yellowing of broccoli. In addition, a series of carotenoid biosynthetic genes such as BoPSY, BoPDS, BoZDS, BoLCYβ and BoZEP was also suppressed by melatonin. Further analysis revealed that the lower carotenoid content and the down-regulated BoNCED expression in treated broccoli resulted in less accumulation of abscisic acid precursors, inhibiting abscisic acid production during the yellowing process.
The successive flood-heat extreme (SFHE) event, which threatens the securities of human health, economy, and building environment, has attracted extensive research attention recently. However, the potential changes in SFHE characteristics and the global population exposure to SFHE under anthropogenic warming remain unclear. Here, we present a global-scale evaluation of the projected changes and uncertainties in SFHE characteristics (frequency, intensity, duration, land exposure) and population exposure under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 and 6.0 scenarios, based on the multi-model ensembles (five global water models forced by four global climate models) within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project 2b framework. The results reveal that, relative to the 1970-1999 baseline period, the SFHE frequency is projected to increase nearly globally by the end of this century, especially in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (>20 events/30-year) and the tropical regions (e.g., northern South America, central Africa, and southeastern Asia, >15 events/30-year). The projected higher SFHE frequency is generally accompanied by a larger model uncertainty. By the end of this century, the SFHE land exposure is expected to increase by 12 % (20 %) under RCP2.6 (RCP6.0), and the intervals between flood and heatwave in SFHE tend to decrease by up to 3 days under both RCPs, implying the more intermittent SFHE occurrence under future warming. The SFHE events will lead to the higher population exposure in the Indian Peninsula and central Africa (<10 million person-days) and eastern Asia (<5 million person-days) due to the higher population density and the longer SFHE duration. Partial correlation analysis indicates that the contribution of flood to the SFHE frequency is greater than that of heatwave for most global regions, but the SFHE frequency is dominated by the heatwave in northern North America and northern Asia.
Artificial electronic synapses are commonly used to simulate biological synapses to realize various learning functions, regarded as one of the key technologies in the next generation of neurological computation. This work used a simple spin coating technique to fabricate polyimide (PI):graphene quantum dots(GQDs) memristor structure. As a result, the devices exhibit remarkably stable exponentially decaying postsynaptic suppression current over time, as interpreted in the spike-timing-dependent plasticity phenomenon. Furthermore, with the increase of the applied electrical signal over time, the conductance of the electrical synapse gradually changes, and the electronic synapse also shows plasticity dependence on the amplitude and frequency of the pulse applied. In particular, the devices with the structure of Ag/PI:GQDs/ITO prepared in this study can produce a stable response to the stimulation of electrical signals between millivolt to volt, showing not only high sensitivity but also a wide range of "feelings", which makes the electronic synapses take a step forwards to emulate biological synapses. Meanwhile, the electronic conduction mechanisms of the device are also studied and expounded in detail. The findings in this work lay a foundation for developing brain-like neuromorphic modeling in artificial intelligence.
Extruded plant proteins, also known as textured vegetable proteins (TVPs), serve as vital components in plant-based meat analogue, yet their structural and nutritional characteristics remain elusive. In this study, we examined the impact of high-moisture (HM) and low-moisture (LM) extrusion on the structures, digestion and absorption of three types of plant proteins. Extrusion transformed plant proteins from spherical to fibrous forms, and formed larger aggregate particles. It also led to the disruption of original disulfide bonds and hydrophobic interactions within protein molecules, and the formation of new cross-links. Intriguingly, compared to native plant proteins, TVPs' α-helix/β-sheet values decreased from 0.68 to 0.69 to 0.56-0.65. Extrusion increased the proportion of peptides shorter than 1 kD in digesta of TVPs by 1.44-23.63%. In comparison to unextruded plant proteins, TVPs exhibited lower content of free amino acids in cell transport products. Our findings demonstrated that extrusion can modify protein secondary structure by diminishing the α-helix/β-sheet value, and impact protein tertiary structure by reducing disulfide bonds and hydrophobic interactions, promoting the digestion and absorption of plant proteins. These insights offer valuable scientific backing for the utilization of extruded plant-based proteins, bolstering their role in enhancing the palatability and nutritional profile of plant-based meat substitutes.
A qualitative study was conducted with semistructured interviews to explore the experiences of well-being in 15 adult palliative care inpatients of University Malaya Medical Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results were thematically analyzed. Six basic themes were generated (1) positive attitude, (2) positive cognitions, (3) positive emotions, (4) positive engagement, (5) positive relationships, and (6) positive circumstances. The Seeds Model was conceptualized from the analysis. This model may inform the development of interventions in the enhancement of well-being of palliative care patients.