The legal critiques of the computer crimes act 1997 in regulating cyber crime / Zaiton Hamin, Hartini Saripan and Rafizah Abu Hassan

From the practical legal perspective and engaging at the instrumental and normative levels, this research attempts to focus on the legal critiques of the Computer Crimes Act 1997. In particular, on the question of what is cyber crime, why is reform needed to the substantive provisions of the said Act and what changes are sought for as well as the rationales in reforming the said Act. Issues affecting the degree or kind or both that drive the need for reform of the 1997 Act will be also be discussed. In line with the approach of common law jurisdictions, in particular the United Kingdom and Singapore as well as the Cyber crime Convention 2001, the research will examine the problems of substantive law, specifically the provisions that may be inadequate to cover certain cyber crimes such as distributed denial of service and the provisions that may in fact cover too wide an area of conduct. Also, from the theoretical level, philosophical issues involved in cyber crime, in particular the problem of identifying legal interests and emerging legal interests will be examined. Adopting a doctrinal and library-based research approach with content analysis as the research design, this current research proposes to scrutinize the 1997 Act in comparison with its Singapore and the United Kingdom counterparts, Computer Misuse Act 1993 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 respectively. A cursory look at the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 would also be necessary to examine if the former statute have adequately supplemented the 1997 Act. The Council of Europe Cyber crime Convention 2001, a significant piece of international instrument, which is broadly aimed at harmonizing cyber crime laws around the world, will also be critically examined to determine the extent to which the 1997 Act in its current form is in keeping with this Convention

THE PREVALENCE OF HELICBACTER PYLORI AMONG PATIENTS COMPLAINING FROM ABDOMINAL PAIN

Helicobacter pylori has been associated with a number of gastrointestinal disorders including gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, gastric adenocarcinoma and gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection among patients complaining from abdominal pain and visiting internal medicine clinics. It was also purposed to investigate the relationship between both age and sex with Helicobacter pylori infection. A retrospective study was conducted and included 101patients with abdominal pain. The results showed that the prevalence of IgG against Helicobacter pylori infection is 85%, while about 38.6% of cases were positive for IgA against Helicobacter pylori. No significant relationships were found for IgG, IgA with age and sex (p value >0.05). Taken together, the study showed high prevalence of H. pylori infection among patients complaining of abdominal pain. H.pylori infection is not associated significantly with age and sex

A clinical audit on diabetes care in two urban public primary care clinics in Malaysia

Introduction: The incidence of diabetes mellitus (DM) is increasing globally and it is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The importance of a better quality of diabetes care is increasingly acknowledged. Objective: This clinical audit was conducted to assess the quality of care given to type 2 DM patients in public primary care clinics. Methods: A clinical audit was conducted in two selected urban public primary care clinics, between April and June of 2005. The indicators and criteria of quality care were based on the current Malaysian clinical practice guidelines for type 2 DM. A structured pro forma was used to collect data. Results: A total of 396 medical records of patients with type 2 DM were included in this audit. Most of the patients had measurements of fasting blood glucose and blood pressure recorded in more than 90% of the visits over the previous one year. Twenty-seven percent of the patients had glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c) done every 6 months with a mean of 8.3%. Only 15.6% had HbA1c values less than 6.5 %. Fifty percent had blood pressure controlled at 130/80 mmHg and below; and 13.0% had low density lipoprotein cholesterol values of 2.6 mmol/L or less. The majority of the patients were overweight or obese. Conclusions: The quality of diabetes care in this study was found to be suboptimal. There is a gap between guidelines and clinical practice. Certain measures to improve the quality of diabetes care need to be implemented with more rigour

Willingness to pay in Kubah National Park and Matang Wildlife Centre: a contingent valuation method

National Park is an important component in the protected area system, and plays a key role in the tourism industry, precisely through ecotourism. Since its inception, the national park concept has been defined in different ways, but it is often connected with the idea of conservation and preservation of the nature and its ecosystems. Having the challenges in the determination of the value (price) of the non-market goods and services, non-market valuation techniques such as Contingent Valuation Method and Choice Experiment have been developed to cater the issues in valuing environmental goods. This study seeks to study on the association of ecotourism as a segment of tourism in Malaysia. However, the scope of this study is limited to the valuation of ecotourism of NPs in Malaysia, particularly in Kubah National Park, Sarawak. Data were obtained using questionnaires from face-to face interviews. A sample of 618 respondents, comprising of visitors and non-visitors (Kuching residents) were involved in the study

Physiological Interactions Of Calcium And Vitamin D In Colon

This study aimed to review the literature about possible physiological interactions of calcium and vitamin D in colon. Previous studies have indicated to protective effects of vitamin D and calcium in case of colon cancers. We wanted to check the physiological effects of both of vitamin D and calcium, and either of each of them alone. We suggested effects of metabolism through induction of changes in the levels of various biomarkers that have influences in carcinogenesis including p53, heat shock proteins, iNOS and WT1 gene

The legal critiques of the Computer Crimes Act 1997 in regulating cybercrime / Associate Professor Dr Zaiton Hamin, Hartini Saripan and Rafizah Abu Hassan

From the practical legal perspective and engaging at the instrumental and normative levels, this research attempts to focus on the legal critiques of the Computer Crimes Act 1997. In particular, on the question of what is cybercrime, why is reform needed to the substantive provisions of the said Act and what changes are sought for as well as the rationales in reforming the said Act. Issues affecting the degree or kind or both that drive the need for reform of the 1997 Act will be also be discussed. In line with the approach of common law jurisdictions, in particular the United Kingdom and Singapore as well as the Cybercrime Convention 2001, the research will examine the problems of substantive law, specifically the provisions that may be inadequate to cover certain cybercrimes such as distributed denial of service and the provisions that may in fact cover too wide an area of conduct. Also, from the theoretical level, philosophical issues involved in cybercrime, in particular the problem of identifying legal interests and emerging legal interests will be examined

Identification of antifungal peptides produced by Lactobacillus plantarum IS10 grown in the MRS broth

The use of secondary metabolites of lactic acid bacteria for preservation of foods is increasingly gaining interest to the food industry to replace synthetic preservatives. In this study, the cell free supernatant containing peptides obtained from Lactobacillus plantarum IS10 was fractionated by size exclusion chromatography using sephadex G-25, and tested against Aspergillus flavus MD3, Penicillium roqueforti MD4 and Eurotium rubrum MD5. Among the fractions, fraction number 10 showed 60% antifungal activity at a concentration of 0.02 mg peptide/mL. Four novel peptides out of twenty peptides obtained from fraction 10 were identified and determined by de novo sequencing. Peptide FPSHTGMSVPPP with a net charge +1, hydrophobicity ratio 58% and molecular weight of 1253 was further studied. The selected peptide showed a good activity at a concentration of 5 mg/mL against selected fungi and poor activity at low concentrations. This work indicates that L. plantarum IS10 has the capability of producing peptides which are affective against spoilage fungi

Effects of ion beam irradiation on morphological and flowering characteristics of chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum morifolium is an important temperate cut flower for Malaysian floriculture industry and the lack of new local owned varieties led to this mutation breeding research. The objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of ion beam irradiation in generating mutations on ray florets and nodal explants of Chrysanthemum morifolium cv. ‘Reagan Red’. Ion beams has become an efficient physical mutagen for mutation breeding. The ray florets and nodal explants were irradiated with ion beams at doses 0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 5.0, 8.0, 10, 15, 20 and 30 Gy. The 50% of in vitro shoot regeneration (RD50) for ray florets explants was 2.0 Gy and for nodal explants was 4.0 Gy. Thus, relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for ray florets was found 2.0 times higher than the nodal explants. The regenerated plantlets were planted in the greenhouse at MARDI, Cameron Highlands for morphological screening. Overall performance of survival plantlets derived from in vitro nodal and ray floret explants was recorded. The characters studied include plant morphology and flowering characteristic. The ray florets explants were found to be more sensitive to ion beam irradiation and generated more mutations as compared to nodal explants

Optimal Number of Nodes Deployment Method in Corona-Based WSN

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of several nodes with limited and non-rechargeable power resources. Therefore, energy efficiency and network lifetime depend on the utilize way of sensor nodes. Recently, some methods and strategies have been employed in this regard. Most of them could improve network lifespan to an acceptable level. Energy hole is one of inherent problems which can decrease the network lifetime to 89%. In multi-hop WSNs, the sensors located closer to sink must relay more data packets in comparison with other ones, thus their power supplies will be exhausted earlier than other nodes. Whereas, the sensor nodes belonging to other layers still have required energy for transmitting their data packets. This asynchronous energy depletion is considered as a problem. In this paper, we present a mathematical model for non-uniform node deployment for corona-based WSNs. According to results, Optimal Number of Nodes Deployment Method (ONNDM) enhance the network lifetime via balancing energy consumption and workload among coronas. In ONNDM, the optimum number of nodes in each corona is obtained by a mathematical formula, which can outperform other proposed strategies

Hubungkait antara Pergaulan Rakan Senasib dan Ketagihan Dadah Semula: Kajian Kes di Jalan Chow Kit

Perkembalian bekas banduan yang dibebaskan dari penjara ke dalam persekitaran yang dipenuhi rakan- rakan senasib boleh membawa kepada pengaruh buruk seperti ketagihan dadah dan pengulangan jenayah semula dalam kalangan bekas banduan. Kertas kajian ini telah bertitik tolak dari sebuah kajian doktor falsafah yang mengkaji tentang pengulangan jenayah yang berlaku dalam kalangan bekas banduan di Malaysia. Hasil kajian doktor falsafah tersebut telah mendapati bekas banduan yang sering kembali semula kepada rakan-rakan senasib akibat ketiadaan keluarga. Kajian ini telah mengunakan kaedah kualitatif dengan menemubual 16 orang bekas banduan yang dikenalpasti menerusi teknik persampelan bola salji. Hasil dapatan yang diperolehi mendapati kesemua bekas banduan ini yang berasal dari pelbagai negeri telah bertumpu di sekitar jalan Chow Kit. Penyalahgunaan yang berlaku akibat daripada proses ajakan dan pelawaan menerusi pergaulan yang terjalin. Keadaan ini membuatkan kajian cuba membuktikan wujudnya hubungkait di antara pengaruh rakan-rakan dengan penyalahgunaan dadah semula dalam kalangan bekas banduan