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Effect of Exercises on the Physical and Functional Fitness among Down Syndrome: A Review
No full textDown Syndrome (DS) has lower levels of physical activity compared to other groups with healthy
development, and they face difficulties such as medical comorbidity, access problems and social
perception of being physically active. The therapists, who are experts in the exercise of
prescription and physical activity and promote exercise to encourage motor development to
modification the physical activity level among the DS faces the challenges. Exercise can improve
cardiovascular, metabolic, musculoskeletal, and psychosocial health profiles. Exergames can be
an appealing alternative to enhance exercise engagement and compliance, whilst improving
physical fitness and motor function. For instance, exercises such as cycling, dancing, jogging or
long-distance running, swimming, and walking, improve cognitive function, aerobic capacity,
balance, muscular strength, and functional ability. Promoting physical activity and exercise is
essential for DS in their daily lives. Thus, the aim of this study to review the effect of exercises
on the physical and functional fitness among DS
Determination the smoothing constant that minimizes mean absolute error and mean square deviation
No full textExponential smoothing technique has become one of the quantitative techniques are very important in
forecasting. The accuracy of forecasting based on this method depends on a parameter called the
smoothing constant. Selection of smoothing constant value becomes very crucial because in
forecasting prosecuted forecasting error is minimal. This paper discusses the selection of the optimal
smoothing constant value which minimizes the mean square error (MSE) and the mean absolute
deviation (MAD). Trial and error method is used to determine the optimal value of the smoothing
constant based on the two criterias (MSE and MAD). Based on the analysis carried out, there was no
regularity of the relationship between the amount of data and the smoothing constant value that
minimized MAD and MSE
I-DetectBC: Intelligence detection of breast cancer
No full textDetecting breast cancer lesions at an early stage can help to improve the patients' survival rates.
Digital mammograms can be used to detect breast cancer lesions. However, mammographic images
suffer from low image quality due to the low exposure factors used. This paper proposes an interactive
way of enhancing mammographic images while improving the detection of breast cancer lesions.
The Intelligence Detection of Breast Cancer ( i - DetectBC ) allows the radiologist or clinicians to
enhance the original mammographic images by using appropriate algorithms automatically. The i -
DetectBC consists of two digital image processing techniques: Fuzzy Anisotropic Diffusion Histogram
Equalization Contrast Adaptive Limited (FADHECAL) enhancement and Multilevel Otsu Thresholding
segmentation technique. The interface of i - DetectBC can be considered user-friendly with low
computational methods to provide fast results, especially when identifying breast cancer types such
as benign or malignant. The i - DetectBC has been performed on 322 mammographic images, which
were retrieved from the MIAS database. The efficiency of the i - DetectBC is 95.7%, and the error rate is
4.3%. In summary, this i - DetectBC can be helpful in the detection and categorization of breast
cancer lesions
Can hypnotherapy entice obese and overweight individuals to improve their dietary intake?
No full textBackground: Hypnotherapy has become an increasingly popular alternative option for
managing body weight among obese and overweight individuals. However there are still
uncertaintes regarding its role in improving dietary intake and weight loss.
Objective): To evaluate the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in improving dietary intake and
body weight of individuals with excess weight problems in a public university in
Terengganu, Malaysia.
Materials & Methods: This prospective, pre-and post-intervention randomly assigned
participants with body mass index (BMI) ≥ 25.0 kg/m2
to either intervention group (IG=53)
or control group (CG=54), for 12 weeks. All participants received health education (diet +
exercise + behavioural recommendations) and completed dietary intake (3-day food
record), while those in IG undergo additional three hypnotherapy sessions, once a month.
Descriptive statistics and repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were
utilized (SPSS 23.0).
Result: Of the 107 Muslim participants (age = 26.28±8.01; female=82.2%;
students=71.0%; BMI=31.39±4.89), 104 of them managed to complete the postintervention phase (drop-out=3). All participants had a significant weight loss (p < 0.001)
which did not differ between groups. However, IG participants lost more weight (3.05 kg)
than CG (2.11 kg) regardless of time. Findings also revealed that there was significant
reduction in total calorie intake among two groups (mean difference = -199.48 kcal, 95%
CI: -341.71, -57.27; p < 0.006).
Conclusion: Hypnotherapy had positively impact on energy intake, indicating its
effectiveness in tackling eating habits. These findings will serve as a basis for future study
as one of the alternative approaches in combating weight problems
Need assessment on why muslim trauma patients neglected their prayers during hospitalization
No full textA Muslim prayer involves physical motions and recitations. It requires cleansing of the body, ablution, and proper clothing prior to the prayer. Illness does not alleviate the obligation to perform the prayer. We performed a need assessment on 203 hospitalized Muslim trauma patients to explore the common and specific difficulties as well as problems faced by them in performing their prayers depending on their level of disabilities. Data collection was conducted using a self-reported questionnaire for the patients and their caregivers, as well as observations and functional assessment by physicians. Data included patients' demographic information (age, gender, occupation, level of education, and level of religious education), practice of prayers before their illness, types and severity of the disability, and difficulties faced in preparing and performing the prayers. The mean age of the entire cohort was 34.15 years. More than half (52.2%) did not perform prayers during hospitalization. Ago gender, and marital status did not significantly influence participants' performance of prayer. Significant influential factors include types of illness (p-0.002), mobility (r0.009), and toileting abilities (r0.009), frequency of daily prayers and mosque-goers prior to illness (p 0.001 and 0.005, respectively). Other factors include the feeling of embarrass with other patients and lack of assistance (p 0.035 and 0.006, respectively). More patients electively admitted performed their prayers compared to those who neglect. 62.0% of patients admitted post-surgery did not pertenn their prayers compared to those who did. Sabah and 'Asr prayers were the most difficult to be performed. although 42.3% of the participants felt all five difficult and not just the two. Understanding the patients' needs will improve deliverance of assistance. A systematic and organized module can be developed to balance between core duties of the healthcare providers and delivering assistance to patients in performing their prayers
Carbon sources effects on different strains of phytase producing bacteria isolated from Malaysia’s hot spring
No full textThis study aimed to determine the effects of using different carbon sources to the growth of different strains
of phytase producing bacteria based on optical density (OD), colony forming unit (CFU), and their phytase
production. All four strains of bacteria potentially producing phytase have been isolated from several hot
springs in Malaysia, which were in Labis, Johor (L3), Dusun Tua, Selangor (RT), Ulu Legong, Kedah (A) and
Ranau, Sabah (B9). The bacteria were grown in nutrient agar (NA) and modified Phytase Screening Medium
(PSM) liquid media for culture enrichment. Glucose and lactose were used as the carbon source and growth
was done under optimum culture conditions (pH 5.5, 37˚C, 200 rpm) for 72 hours through batch culture
method using a shake-flask scale. All experiments were done in triplicates. For quantitative screening of
phytase production, the bacterial cultures were harvested to obtain the supernatants that were used to
measure the amount of inorganic phosphorus released by the bacterial strains. Among these carbon sources,
glucose have shown consistency between their CFU counts and the observed ODs whereas lactose shown
inconsistency. Meanwhile, the maximum phytase activity was recorded for all strains in the presence of
glucose in which bacteria strain L3 (0.040 U/mL), RT (0.036 U/mL), B9 (0.026 U/mL), and A (0.026 U/mL).
As for the overall, strain L3 (from Labis, Johor) gave promising rate of inorganic phosphate released with
optimum phytase activity value of 0.04 U/mL in presence of glucose and lactose. In the future, biochemical
research and molecular identification may also be carried out to identify molecular identity in the strains. This
study can provide an efficient strategy to produce maximum phytase as few studies stated that phytase is an
application tool in functional food production that consists of myo – inositol phosphates that is believed to
have important pharmacological effects