Acceptance of the Punctuality Cascading Reporting System (PCRS) among staffs at National Audit Department in Melaka / Rahayu Abdullah and Nina Nabiha Hassan

The purpose of this research is to find the factors that influence on acceptance of the Punctuality Cascading Reporting System (PCRS) among staffs at National Audit Department. The factors are trust, perceived ease of use, social influence and perceived of usefulness. National Audit Department in Melaka is the first federal institution that uses this system. It also is the first branch of National Audit Department for the trial period using it before implement to other branches in Malaysia. In order to get the result for this research, the researchers have used the software of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 to analyse the data. The information that gathers and findings will be used to know the most factors that influenced to the dependent variable and to improve on acceptance for this system among their staffs

Analysing accounting and organisational change: the theoretical development

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development of institutionalist theoretical framework that can be used to analyse the process of accounting and organisational change and the role of human agency.In so doing, the philosophical and methodological approach of the institutional theory and the extension and the contributions made to the neo old institutional economics (OIE) framework by several authors are elaborated.This is followed by a detail explanation of Van der Steen's (2005) framework of institutional change that is offered to provide a more comprehensive explanation of change at the individual and also collective levels.However, the neo OIE framework of accounting and organisational change developed so far such as Burns and Scapens (2000), Seo and Creed (2002) and Van der Steen's (2005) have not considered explicitly the role of leadership in the process of change.Questions such as how do leaders influence their subordinates in getting individuals to change their schema and scripts and in getting the team within organisations to work towards resolving the issues and effectively make successful alterations to the individual and 'organisational' mindset have not been taken into considerations.Thus, this paper proposed refinement to the Van der Steen's (2005) framework by integrating elements of leadership in order to effect change both at the individual and collective levels

Leadership and change management: a case study of Pemancar

This case examines the implementation of a new organizational culture in a newly taken-over Malaysian subsidiary by a European-based multinational company.The new organizational culture is geared towards high performance, increased accountability, value creation, and high quality and better communication.However, organizational members who were very much accustomed to their prevailing organizational culture found it difficult to understand the need for them to change as they had done well in the past.The features of the new culture, the structural changes that have taken place and how the organizational members felt about the change process and their reactions towards the change are explicated in the case.The case also highlights the various issues and challenges that took place and which needed to be tackled in the management's effort to ensure the successful integration and internalization process of the change in organizational culture

Management control in multinational firms: future research directions

Issue of control in the multinational companies has been very much debated by the scholars in the area of international business.The changes in global competitive environment have lead to changes in the headquarters-subsidiary relationship.Control has been typified less by chain of command, and more by mutual interdependence, and learning.Thus, the issue of control in multinational firms and the future research direction in this area are discussed in this paper.In so doing, the types and forms of prevailing multinational firms and the forms of control are elaborated. The processes of transfers of management practices especially that of management control practices are also discussed in terms the factors influencing the transfer process, the transfer mechanism, and the effects of transfer

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF RP-HPLC METHOD FOR SIMULTANEOUS QUANTIFICATION OF SULFACETAMIDE SODIUM AND PREDNISOLONE SODIUM PHOSPHATE

Sulfacetamide sodium (SFS), in combination with prednisolone sodium phosphate (PSP), is indicated for ophthalmic infections. The present study describes a reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography method for simultaneous estimation of these two drugs using diode-array detector. Isocratic elution with solvent system acetate buffer (0.01 M, pH 7): acetonitrile: methanol 75:20:5 (v/v/v), at a flow rate of 0.8 mL min-1 gave optimum resolution. The detection limits for SFS and PSP were calculated as 1.15 µg mL-1 and 1.45µg mL-1, while quantification limits were 3.83 µg mL-1 and 4.84 µg mL-1 respectively. Accuracy was found to be 99-101% with relative standard deviation (RSD) values less than 2%. The proposed method is accurate, precise, sensitive, reproducible and applicable for normal usage in quality control laboratories. It would prove advantageous in utilizing less time and resources as previously there is no reported single assay for simultaneous quantification of the aforementioned drugs

Ultraviolet radiation, both UVA and UVB, influences the composition of the skin microbiome

Inhabiting each square centimeter of skin are approximately 1 million bacteria from hundreds of distinct species. Recent studies have begun to investigate the complex relationship between host and microorganisms leading to non-infectious pathologies such as acne, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis. Though the skin is continuously exposed to external environmental stressors such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation, there have been no studies examining the effects of UV on the skin microbiome. To test our hypothesis that UV will alter the cutaneous microbiome, 22 participants were exposed to various doses of UVA (22-47 J/cm2) or UVB (100-350 mJ/cm2) and skin was swabbed before, immediately after, and 24h after UV exposure. DNA was isolated from the swabs and sequenced to identify the microbial composition for each sample. There was vast intra- and inter-subject variation in the skin microbiome at all time points, and phylum- and species-level differences were identified. Specifically, within the Proteobacteria phyla, an increase of the order Burkholderiales was observed after UV compared to pre-UV (59% vs 24%, p=0.0172). There was no clear difference in microbial composition between UVA- and UVB-irradiated skin; however, the sensitivity of various microbes to UV as well as their re-colonization potential following exposure differed. Taken together, the results demonstrate that UV radiation, both UVA and UVB, has profound qualitative and quantitative influences on the composition of the skin microbiome, which may affect skin diseases in which UV radiation is a factor, and may contribute to the efficacy of phototherapy and photochemotherapy

Child and adolescent health in northwestern Syria: Findings from Healthy-Syria 2017 study

Objectives: Since the uprising in 2011, there has been limited health-care data from inside Syria in the academic literature. This study aims to provide an updated account of pediatric health needs in the northwestern part of Syria; this should help inform the management and delivery of health-care services in this population.Methods: This is a prospective study, using a data registry, of all pediatric patients seen in a single center in northwestern Syria, between February and December 2017. We used international classification of diseases (ICD-10) codes to define cases, and tested several covariates, including age, sex, season of the year, and conditions of living for possible correlations with major illness categories.Results: We included 11,819 patients, of whom 5,288 (45%) were male and 6,531 (55%) were female. Collectively, these patients had 23,427 encounters. Respiratory diseases were the most encountered illnesses among all age groups (6320 [27%]), except late teen females, among whom gynecological/obstetric complaints dominated. Infectious diseases caused the greatest disease burden across all age groups, with upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), infectious diarrhea, and otitis media representing almost half (47%) of all cases in this category. Nutritional deficiencies were diagnosed in 978 patients (8%), mostly in infants and toddlers (92%). We identified 1192 (17%) cases of acute diarrhea among all age groups, making it the second most common condition after URTIs. As compared to town residents, patients living in camps for internally displaced people accounted for more cases of infectious diarrhea (58%), chronic anemia (60%), and malnutrition (66%), especially severe acute malnutrition (76% of malnutrition cases). Vaccine-preventable illnesses represented a sizable category; we reported 69 cases of hepatitis A, 2 of poliomyelitis, 9 of pertussis, 37 of varicella, 11 of mumps, 8 of rubella, and 1 case of measles.Conclusion: We have identified urgent health-care issues in this population, including extreme malnutrition, high rates of infectious diseases, and high rates of teenage pregnancy. Also, we observed a relapse of some vaccine-preventable illnesses, such as mumps and rubella, which are likely associated with the decline in vaccination rates

Ultraviolet radiation, both UVA and UVB, influences the composition of the skin microbiome

BACKGROUND: Studies have begun to investigate the complex relationship between host and microorganisms in non-infectious pathologies such as acne, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. Though the skin is exposed to environmental stressors such as ultraviolet radiation (UVR), no studies exist examining the effects of both UVA and UVB on the skin microbiome. OBJECTIVE: To test the effect of UVA and UVB on human skin microbiome. METHODS: To test whether UV will alter the cutaneous microbiome, participants were exposed to doses of UVA (22-47 J/cm(2) ) or UVB (100-350 mJ/cm(2) ) and samples were collected. DNA was isolated and sequenced to identify the microbial composition of each sample. RESULTS: There was vast intra- and inter-subject variation at all time points, and phylum and species-level differences were identified. These included an increase in the phylum Cyanobacteria and a decrease in the family Lactobacillaceae and Pseudomonadaceae. The sensitivity of microbes to UVR and their re-colonization potential following exposure differed in UVA vs UVB samples. LIMITATIONS: The sample size was small, and the study was limited to males. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate that UVR has profound qualitative and quantitative influences on the composition of the skin microbiome, possibly effecting skin pathology in which UVR is a factor

List of participating sites and ethics committee approvals.

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Data measures definitions.

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