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Physical activity, eating behaviours and body satisfaction among private preschoolers in Putrajaya / Woh Poh Then
No full textNumerous studies had focused on examining the physical activity level, eating behaviours and body satisfaction worldwide. Additionally, some researchers have explored the gender differences of primary school students and adolescents as well as the correlation between these three variables. However, there are fewer studies that involve preschoolers and young children. Hence, the purpose of this study is to seek better understanding of the physical activity level, eating behaviour and body satisfaction among pre-schoolers in Malaysia. The Federal Territory of Putrajaya was being selected as the study’s location as it marked the highest percentage of children; and highest overweight and obesity rate in Malaysia. The researcher applied simple random sampling to select participants from the location. 120 participants aged 6 years old from 5 different private preschools, together with the assistance of their parents participated in this study. The participants responded to ‘Reported Snack Food Intake’ (adapted version) and ‘Children Figure Drawing’; while parents contributed to ‘Children’s Physical Activity Questionnaire (CPAQ)’ and ‘Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ)’. The results showed that there was a gender difference in total sports time (p=0.000) but not total leisure, activities at school and sedentary activities. There were significant gender differences in both the eating behaviours’ subscales which included Food Approach Behaviour (p=0.045) and Food Avoidant Behaviour (p=0.000) as well as body satisfaction (p=0.000). The body dissatisfaction negatively correlates with the engagement in sport activities (r=-0.197, p=0.031); but positively correlates with Food Avoidant Behaviour (r=0.244, p=0.007). Since childhood is a critical and crucial period in a person’s lifespan, it is important for educators, parents and related parties to pay more attention to how physical activities, eating behaviours and body satisfactions have an effect on both the physical and psychological development of children
Metaphors of Political Satire: A Study of Online Jordanian News Columns / Mohammad Abedltif Abedlrazaq Albtoush
No full textThis study aims at examining types of universal and culturally-specific metaphors utilized
in satirical socio-political columns of online Jordanian news columns. The selected
dataset comprises 97 extracts across the years 2010-2015 and is compiled from the
website www.sawaleif.com, which is mainly concerned with the writings of a well-known
Jordanian columnist, Ahmad Hasan Al-Zu’bi. The study is mainly qualitative and is
handled within the theoretical framework of the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) as well as the critical metaphor analysis championed by
Charteris-Black (2004-2005). The linguistic metaphors are manually calculated in order
to identify the different target domains and patterns evoked by the same source domain.
The extracts involve a wide range of conventional and novel metaphors which
discursively address corruption and political malpractices in Jordan, and regional sociopolitical matters in the Arab countries in general. The findings of the study reveal that the
metaphors identified are intended to evoke the emotion of SHAME through satirical and
non-satirical scenarios which is based on the principles, value system and traditions of
the Jordanian community. In addition, the emotion of PRIDE is also identified. While
some of the identified metaphors conform to the universal narrow-scope sources of these
emotions in terms of being shaped by bodily experiences as proposed by theorists such as
Kövecses (2003), others seem to be based on more culturally specific values. Crucially,
based on Fairclough and Van Dijk’s perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis, the
columnist’s SHAME metaphors are a call for emancipatory agenda represented by
liberating the oppressed Jordanian citizens from unjust and discriminatory political practices and policies. They are also intended to send a covert moral lesson to
government’s officials to adhere to Islamic moral and Jordanian social values, norms and iv codes of ethics. Underlying these too, the Arab regimes and rulers are urged to end suppression of their subordinates, emancipate and secure themselves from global powers as well as restore pride in Arabism and its glorious heritage
Establishment of Mucuna bracteata as a platform for the production of anti-toxoplasma immunoglobulin / Nazrin Abd Aziz
No full textProduction of recombinant proteins using plant system has gained a continuous momentum in the past decade. Traditionally, recombinant proteins are commercially produced through mammalian cell lines and microbial fermentation. These conventional platforms have intricate scalability, safety issues and costly. On the other hand, plants are easily scalable, economically competitive and do not harbor animal or human pathogens. As eukaryote, plants are capable to carry out complex post-translational modifications that are necessary for functional biological activities such as disulphide bridging and glycosylation. The aim of this study is to establish a new platform for the production of recombinant pharmaceutical protein in Mucuna bracteata. M. bracteata is an important perennial cover crop species that is widely planted as an underground cover in oil palm and rubber plantations. They have high biomass, grow vigorously and as a legume, able to fix nitrogen which are all ideal characteristics as a platform for mass production of recombinant protein. However, low germination rate and poor viability of M. bracteata seeds pose significant challenges of using the seeds as starting material for this study. To address these limitations, seed germination conditions (such as scarification period, surface sterilization protocols and imbibition period) were optimized and in vitro propagation protocols for M. bracteata was first established in this study. The results showed that seeds treated with sulphuric acid for 30 min, imbibed for 6 h and incubated in dark conditions on a wet cotton roll supplemented with 0.1% activated charcoal produced the highest percentage of seed germination (44%). In vitro-derived cotyledonary nodes showed the highest number of shoots per explant (5.60) and rooting response (92.9%) when cultured on Murashige and Skoog medium containing 4.44 μM 6-benzylaminopurine and 10.7 μM 1-naphthaleneacetic acid, respectively. The optimized seed germination condition and in vitro protocol were used to develop stable and transient expression system of anti-toxoplasma immunoglobulin (IgG) in M. bracteata. In stable expression system, the highest percentage of transgenic shoots was generated when five day-old M. bracteata cotyledonary node explants were infected for 20 min and co-cultivated for 6-day with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain GV3101. Unfortunately, the generated transgenic shoots have stunted growth that hindered extraction and quantification of anti-toxoplasma IgG. On the other hand, in transient expression system, vacuum infiltration of five week-old M. bracteata plant with A. tumefaciens strain GV3101 harboring pTRAkcHcLcTg130 produced the highest concentration of anti-toxoplasma IgG in its bottom trifoliate leaf at two days post infiltration. When compared to the model plants for the production of plant-derived heterologous protein, M. bracteata consistently produced at least twofold higher concentration of anti-toxoplasma IgG than Nicotiana benthamiana and transgenic line of Nicotiana tabacum cv. SR1. Even though M. bracteata demonstrated the existence of structural heterogeneity in the purified anti-toxoplasma IgG, the anti-toxoplasma IgG retained its antigen binding properties as shown through ELISA. This study has demonstrated the feasibility of transient over stable expression system and laid the foundation towards establishing M. bracteata as a potential platform for the production of recombinant pharmaceutical protein via transient expression approach
Synthesis and biological activities of imidazolium acridines and their silver complexes / Olla H S Sharhan
No full textIn the present study, a series of acridine-based imidazolium ligands were synthesized by the Menshutkin reaction and used for the preparation of the silver complexes. The structures were established using NMR and IR spectroscopy as well as high-resolution mass spectrometry. The purity of the ligands was confirmed by CHN elemental analysis, while energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) was applied for the silver complexes. In view of the luminescent behaviour of acridine, UV-Vis and fluorescence spectra were recorded for ligands and complexes. However, low water solubility constrains potential application as analytical probe. Preliminary in vitro cytotoxicity screenings were performed using an MTT assay against three cancer and two non-tumorigenic cell lines. All compounds showed low toxicity on normal cell lines, while the anticancer activity varied with the cancer cell lines. The complexes exhibited higher activities than the ligands. Incorporation of aromatic structures at the imidazolium substituent typically enhances the activity. All compounds were evaluated for antioxidant activity by using DPPH and FRAP assays. However, practically the FRAP results indicated low activities compared to the reference compound (ascorbic acid). The antibacterial activity of benzimidazolium-based acridine salts and their complexes was screened against standard strains of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria using the disc diffusion method as well as minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) assays. Most compounds were effective against the tested bacteria, while the complexes exhibited higher activities than the ligands
Mixed features specifier in mood disorder: The prevalence and associated factors / Tesini M. Paramannantha Veloo
No full textIntroduction: Mixed episode has been an unrelieved source of discussion in the field of
psychiatry over the course of two decades as the DSM-IV criteria for both a depressive
and manic episode had to be fulfilled to make this diagnosis. Nevertheless, in practice,
this threshold was demonstrated to be too high. Therefore, the DSM-5 introduced a less
stringent ‘specifier’ in which three symptoms of the opposite pole suffice thereby creating
depression and mania with mixed features, respectively. Literatures points out that
approximately 40% of patients have mixed episodes, but this figure may be much higher
within the context of DSM-5. Literatures have persistently showed that major mood
disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder with Mixed features
are associated with a poorer outcome and a more complex progress of illness.
Methodology: This is a cross sectional prevalence study to determine the prevalence of
Mixed Features Specifiers among Major Mood Disorder and its associated factors among
outpatient patients. Study was done in Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta, Perak using a
researcher administered questionnaire which consisted of five parts which includes
sociodemographic factors, clinical characteristics, MADRS score, YMRS score and QoL
score. All data was analyzed using SPSS version 24.0.
Results: A total of 148 patients were selected as calculated in the sample size calculation
for this study. Overall prevalence of MFS among Major Mood Disorder was 29.8%. There
were significant associations between ethnicity (X2=9.063; df 1; p=0.028), marital status
(X2=18.738; df 1; p<0.001) and average monthly income (X2=31.534; df 1; p=<0.001)
with MFS. In terms of clinical characteristics, there were significant associations between
number of hospitalizations (X2=41.026; df 1; p<0.001), trials of medications
(X2=29.540; df 1; p<0.001), total number of medications on (X2=42.338; df 1; p<0.001),
history of ECT (X2=10.590; df 1; p=0.001), family history of mood disorder (X2=20.944;
df 1; p<0.001), suicidal attempts (X2=26.570; df 1; p<0.001), history substance use
(X2=19.249; df 1; p<0.001), compliance to treatment (X2=4.310; df 1; p=0.038), YMRS
score (X2=16.799; df 1; p=0.001) and MADRS score (X2=43.525; df 1; p<0.001) with
MFS. From the results that we obtained, it could identify some associated with MFS
which were significant in the sociodemographic factors and clinical characteristics such
as amount of income, substance use and number of hospitalizations.
Conclusion: As a conclusion, we fail to reject the alternate hypothesis that there are
sociodemographic and clinical characteristics associations with MFS. We also failed to
reject the alternate hypothesis that there are significant differences between the QoL of
MFS patients and non MFS patients.
Keywords: Mixed Features Specifiers (MFS), Major Mood Disorder, Quality of Life
(QoL
An integrated three-flow approach for front-end service composition / Lim Mei Ting
No full textEnd-User Service Composition (EUSC) aims to enable end-user programmers who are not professional developers, develop applications by composing or aggregating existing web services. Despite the effort, studies have shown that end-user programmers are not able to deal with the technical complexities involved in EUSC. One way to deal with this issue is Front-End Service Composition (FESC), which allows end-user programmers to compose web services at the presentation layer of an application by configuring User Interface (UI) widgets that represent the back-end web services. However, apart from there not being enough studies on FESC, end-user programmers also experience a number of conceptual and usability issues in service composition. Following that, this research proposes an integrated three-flow approach namely application flow, control flow and data flow, to help deal with the current limitations of FESC. The approach generates the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of web services automatically, thus allowing the UI of the application to be developed at the same time the required web services are assembled. The approach allows end-user programmers to explicitly configure the three different types of flows involved in service composition. A proof-of-concept prototype, QuickWSC, that incorporates the three-flow approach was developed. It adopts a side-by-side multiple-view design to support visual configuration of the three flows in an uncluttered yet synchronized manner that adheres to established design guidelines. A user evaluation study which comprised the think-aloud protocol, observation and survey was conducted for data collection purpose where end-user programmers were recruited to evaluate QuickWSC. During the user evaluation study, the end-user programmer was given a brief introduction about the research. Thereafter, a predefined scenario was given to the end-user programmer for a web service composition task. The composition process was recorded on video for data analysis purposes. Framework analysis approach and descriptive statistics were used for qualitative and quantitative data analysis respectively. The results achieved was decently positive. Triangulation was performed during discussion over the results by using the qualitative and quantitative analysed data, and providing a more comprehensive finding of the prototype usability and its features. The evaluation results show that QuickWSC has a high level of usability and it is easy to compose web services by explicitly specifying the three flows, the three-flow configurations integrated into the two views helps in composing application from web services, and that no technical knowledge is required to use QuickWSC. This research has successfully implemented the prototype based on the proposed approach to address a number of conceptual and usability issues in service composition faced by the end-user
Surface modification of biomaterials to reduce polyethylene wear in metal-polymer contact / Tan Mean Yee
No full textThis research focus on studying different surface modification (Texturing and DLC coating) on the metal part of TKR (Total knee replacement) in improving UHMWPE (Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene) wear. TKR was widely being used to relieve knee pain due to osteoarthritis and further restore knee function of patients. Generally, TKR consists of metal femoral component, metal tibial component, and UHMWPE tibial insert. TKR will fail due to various factors over time, however, this study will be focusing on failure cause by loosening. Loosening failure of TKR was mainly caused by wear debris generated during articulation motion, where UHMWPE wear was one of the main threats toward loosening failure. UHMWPE has many advantages; however, the major drawback of UHMWPE was its hydrophobicity. Protein will more likely being attracted and denatured onto hydrophobic surface and form protein aggregate. The protein aggregates formed on the surface will increase surface roughness and friction which later cause surface wear. However, when two hydrophobic surfaces with protein aggregates interact, protein aggregate from both surfaces will bind together and formed a thin film which protects the surface from wear. Hence, surface modification (Texturing and DLC coating) onto the hydrophilic metal surface will be done in order to alter the surface energy of the metal surface.
Surface texturing using LST method was used to create dimple texture, while surface coating was used to deposit DLC (Diamond-like coating) coating (ta-C, a-C:H) onto the metal surface. Surface characterization (RAMAN, FTIR) was done in order to characterize the surface morphology before wear. Protein absorption and wettability test was done on DLC coating in order to evaluate the relationship between surface energy and protein adsorption towards wear. Wear test was done using reciprocating and pin-on-
disc method under protein (BS, BSA) lubricated condition. Wear surface then was characterized using RAMAN, FTIR, SEM, optical microscope in order to analyze the surface wear mechanism. The results of this research show that UHMWPE wear of tibial insert in TKR will deteriorate over time and was essential to reduce formation of wear in order to improve functionality and performance of TKR. Hence, surface modification was being done. Surface texturing might have the ability to protect its own surface from wear, but it will cause high wear on its counterpart. While DLC coating has the ability to protect its own surface and its counterpart from wear. a-C:H coating can reduce more UHMWPE wear as compared with ta-C coating. The a-C:H coating deposited using different hydrocarbon source will not have much differences in improving UHMWPE wear
Determinants of tourism demand in Malaysia: Evidence from selected Asian countries / Chen Qiyun
No full textTourism brings numerous benefits to Malaysia by filling up the spreads demand from
tourists. Aware of the comparative advantage in tourism from the Malaysian
government, the tourism industry is treated as an essential factor in boosting the
Malaysian economy. This paper investigates the determinants of tourism demand in
Malaysia by tourists from selected Asian countries – Singapore, Indonesia, China and
Thailand using quarterly data from 2008 through 2018. Panel data technique is
employed to analyze the effect of macroeconomic variables such as real GDP per
capita, real exchange rate and trade openness on tourist arrivals in Malaysia. The
empirical results show that real GDP per capita and trade openness positively affect
tourism demand in Malaysia, while the real exchange rate is negatively correlated with
the tourism demand. Lastly, the findings of this study provide corresponding policy
recommendations to welcome more international tourists and improve the Malaysian
tourism sector
Government debt and economic growth / Ng Cai Xin
No full textThe level of Malaysia government debt have been hiking in recent years which leads to controversies regarding the sustainability of the debt level. The question that borrowings will stimulate or inhibit the economy remains as an important issue to be addressed. This paper examines the impact of government debt on economic growth in Malaysia. Utilizing the macroeconomic data between 1970 and 2018, we first apply an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework to examine the relationship between government debt and economic growth. The short term and long term relationship as well as cointegrating relationship between government debt and economic growth were examined. Next, quantile regression was employed to investigate the impact of government debt on economic growth of Malaysia at different stages of development. The most important finding of this paper is the negative relationship between government debt and economic growth in short term and long term. The results contradict the previous evidences showing the nonlinear relationship between government debt but are consistent with the existing literature stating the negative impact of government debt on economic growth. Besides, the results of quantile regression show that the negative impact of government debt on economic growth become significant starting at quantile 0.9. These findings indicate that the government should engage in fiscal consolidation to ensure sustainable economic growth
The Chinese calligraphy stone gallery / Xie Yingying
No full textThis dissertation studies the reshaping of cultural memory in helping to increase cultural self-confidence and to gain cultural identity.
Nirvana Group placed great emphasis on promoting Chinese culture and on the basis of respecting culture; it has established the Chinese Calligraphy Stone gallery. This dissertation found that the Chinese Calligraphy Stone gallery which is specially constructed through the installation of represented structures of China showcased the Confucian principles and Taoist thought. Cultural memory has been reconstructed based on the permanent collection of diachronic masterpieces of the elite culture of calligraphy tradition. I would like to say that the spirit of Confucianism has been stored, the concept of combining Confucianism with business has been shaped that it has a long history. Through the establishment of Chinese Calligraphy Stone Gallery, the roots of Confucian classics are recreated and thus reproducing the interpretation and practice of the Nanyang Chinese of the Confucian’s merchant spirit. Therefore, has constructed a long history of Confucian merchants’ cultural memory