Role of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) in synaptic plasticity and neurotransmission in mammalian spinal cord.

Chronic unilateral hemisection (HX) of the adult rat spinal cord diminishes conduction through intact fibers in the ventrolateral funiculus (VLF) contralateral to HX. Intraspinal injections of Chondroitinase-ABC, known to digest chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) in the vicinity of injury, prevented this decline of axonal conduction. This was associated with improved locomotor function. We further injected three purified CSPGs into the lateral column of the uninjured cord at T10: NG2 and neurocan, which increase in the vicinity of a spinal injury, and aggrecan, which decreases. Intraspinal injection of NG2 acutely depressed axonal conduction through the injection region in a dose dependent manner. Similar injections of saline, aggrecan, or neurocan had no significant effect. These results identify a novel acute action of CSPGs on axonal conduction in spinal cord, and suggest that antagonism of proteoglycans reverses or prevents the decline of axonal conduction, in addition to stimulating axonal growth

Digitizing radiology films using flat-bed scanner and produce a multimedia digital teaching file in musculoskeletal radiology

Digital images have been long established in radiology department. Despite this, most radiology teaching films has been film-based. The drawback of this conventional system is that it consumed space, only one user can use at any one time and expensive. Analogue radiology films were digitized using flatbed scanner with transparency adaptor and digital camera. Digital-based teaching files using personal computer (PC) should be encouraged as this will reduce space for storing, can be distributed without much cost, inexpensive, many users can use at the same time and others can use even though at different place using the internet. The teaching file was prepared using HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) as this can be used using any web browser. It is now available in University Sains Malaysia, Kelantan Campus Branch (USMKCK) intranet

Effect of Heat Treatment on Corrosion Behaviour of Welded AA6061 Aluminium Alloy in Seawater

The effect of various heat treatments on the corrosion behaviour of welded AA6061 aluminium alloy was investigated. Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) was used for welding butt joint specimens. Corrosion behaviour was determined in seawater solution using potentiodynamic polarization method. Microstructure and compositional analysis of base metal (BM) and weld metal (WM) was studied with scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The result indicated that BM consists of Fe-rich coarse intermetallic particles that behave as cathodic sites with respect to the matrix. Tafel plot showed that WM is cathode and give better corrosion resistance in different heat treatment compared to BM. Localized corrosion was observed on the corroded surfaces by SEM

A Suggested Model for Studying Technopreneurial Intention in Malaysia

Technology entrepreneurship or technopreneurship is a future trend in the era of industrial revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0). Technopreneurship requires innovative, young and information-communication technology (ICT) savvy individuals. Many countries around the world, including Malaysia, has put in a lot of efforts to develop entrepreneurial skills among youngsters especially the students. However, developing competitive young technopreneurs remains challenging in Malaysia. For instance, Malaysians scored low in several entrepreneurial behaviors and attitudes identified by Global Entrepreneurial Monitor (GEM). Furthermore, not many Malaysians have started new businesses and the country recorded a low and declining early-stage entrepreneurship rate. Moreover, university students were not showing great interest in becoming entrepeneurs during thier tertiary eduation. The future of IR 4.0 is unpredictable and full of challenges. Thus, the unattended issue of developing young and competitive technopreneurs will affect the ways Malaysians confront the unknown future. In the entrepreneurship literature, technological capability aspects and psychological aspects such as entrepreneurial orientaion (EO) and entrepreneurial intention are under-researched. Therefore, based on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and individual EO (IEO) concept, this study proposes a model to explain the direct and indirect influence of ICT self-efficacy and IEO on technopreneurial intention. The potential contribution of this study is two-fold. Literally, it develops a new model for investigating technopreneurial intention. Practically, it provides insights on the implementation of policies in developing competitive entrepreneurial graduates, creating technology innovative individuals and transforming Malaysia into a knowledge economy. It also identifies the types of ICT capabilities that are crucial in developing innovative and entrepreneurial human capital. Additionally, it helps to strengthen and increase the particiaption of youngsters in the economy through technology entrepreneurial activities.     Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, model, students, technolog

Stability improvement of an efficient graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistor-based sram design

The development of the nanoelectronics semiconductor devices leads to the shrinking of transistors channel into nanometer dimension. However, there are obstacles that appear with downscaling of the transistors primarily various short-channel effects. Graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistor (GNRFET) is an emerging technology that can potentially solve the issues of the conventional planar MOSFET imposed by quantum mechanical (QM) effects. GNRFET can also be used as static random-access memory (SRAM) circuit design due to its remarkable electronic properties. For high-speed operation, SRAM cells are more reliable and faster to be effectively utilized as memory cache. The transistor sizing constraint affects conventional 6T SRAM in a trade-off in access and write stability. This paper investigates on the stability performance in retention, access, and write mode of 15 nm GNRFET-based 6T and 8T SRAM cells with that of 16 nm FinFET and 16 nm MOSFET. The design and simulation of the SRAM model are simulated in synopsys HSPICE. GNRFET, FinFET, and MOSFET 8T SRAM cells give better performance in static noise margin (SNM) and power consumption than 6T SRAM cells. The simulation results reveal that the GNRFET, FinFET, and MOSFET-based 8T SRAM cells improved access static noise margin considerably by 58.1%, 28%, and 20.5%, respectively, as well as average power consumption significantly by 97.27%, 99.05%, and 83.3%, respectively, to the GNRFET, FinFET, and MOSFET-based 6T SRAM design. © 2020 Mathan Natarajamoorthy et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Fate of Chemical Activators in the Aqueous Environment: What Should We Do About IT?

The commonly used activators in chemical activation of activated carbon are very toxic and poisonous to the aquatic environment. Finding trade-off solutions without compromising the quality of activated carbon and jeopardizing the environment have become the subject of considerable interest. This paper is aimed to shed some light on the inevitable release of chemical activators to the aqueous environment, and offers some possible solutions to overcome the emergence of secondary pollution

Empirical Investigation on Attitude towards Personal Loans Borrowing

In Malaysia, people enjoy various benefits provided by government such as first housing loan, medical benefit, various incentives and others. Even they obtain a lot of benefits; however, the statistics shows that the household debt keep increasing as the ratio of household debt to GDP of Malaysia increased from 62.7 percent in 2008 to 76.6 percent in 2011 and 84.6 percent in 2017. In addition, a debt service ratio of 30 percent is acceptable; however, the Malaysian household debt service ratio was 9.1 percent in 2006, rose to 49.0 percent in 2009 and dropped slightly to 47.8 percent in 2010. This indicates that approximately half of a household’s income used to pay their debts. As a result, after paying off the debt, the balance to spend on education, transport, food, and for emergencies become smaller. Additionally, an investigation of the ratio of household debt to disposable income, Malaysian ratio is 140.4 percent, and is identified as one of the highest in the world. It indicates that the loans taken are on average 1.4 times more than household income for each household in Malaysia. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to investigate the determinants that contribute to person’s borrowing loans; however, this study focus on the borrowing personal loans as it is one of main contributor to increase the household debt. Five determinants are identified which are as follows: knowledge about personal loans, media awareness, and perceptions toward personal loans, family influence and religious/ethic belief. Questionnaires were distributed to the 100 respondents. The sampling procedure adopted was stratified random sampling. The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 which involves scale reliability, descriptive and regression analysis. The result indicates that media awareness and religious/ethic belief becomes the important determinants that influence the personal loans borrowing. Moreover, religious/ethic belief is found to be the best predictor that influences the person’s borrowing the personal loans. This study advances current knowledge by adding alternative insights to determinants of borrowing personal loans.     Keywords: personal loans, media, religious, regression, household deb

Protective effect of Withaferin-A on micronucleus frequency and detoxication agents during experimental oral carcinogenesis

Our aim was to investigate the effect of Withaferin-A on bone marrow micronucleus frequency andbuccal mucosa detoxication agents during 7, 12–dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA) induced hamster buccal pouch carcinogenesis. Oral squamous cell carcinoma was developed in hamsters’ buccal pouches by painting 0.5% DMBA in liquid paraffin, three times per week for 14 weeks. We observed 100% tumor formation in DMBA painted hamsters. Elevated frequency of bone marrow micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (MnPCEs) and decrease in buccal mucosa phase II detoxication agents were noticed in tumor bearing hamsters. Oral administration of Withaferin-A significantly reduced the micronucleus frequency and brought back the status of phase II detoxication agents in DMBA painted hamsters. Our study thus demonstrated the protective effect of Withaferin-A on DMBA-induced micronucleus frequency in the bone marrow of golden Syrian hamsters. Also, Withaferin-A maintained the status of buccal mucosa detoxication agents during DMBA-induced hamster buccal pouch carcinogenesis.Key words: Withaferin-A, DMBA, Oral cancer, Micronucleus, Detoxicatio

Willmore Surfaces of Constant Moebius Curvature

We study Willmore surfaces of constant Moebius curvature $K$ in $S^4$. It is proved that such a surface in $S^3$ must be part of a minimal surface in $R^3$ or the Clifford torus. Another result in this paper is that an isotropic surface (hence also Willmore) in $S^4$ of constant $K$ could only be part of a complex curve in $C^2\cong R^4$ or the Veronese 2-sphere in $S^4$. It is conjectured that they are the only examples possible. The main ingredients of the proofs are over-determined systems and isoparametric functions.Comment: 16 pages. Mistakes occured in the proof to the main theorem (Thm 3.6) has been correcte