Practice of breast sel-examination (BSE) and its relation to knowledge and attitude among female attendees of Out - patient Department, Hospital Kuala Lumpur , 1996

Although the effectiveness of Breast Self Examination (BSE) and its potential use as a screening method for detecting early breast cancer is debatable, its practice is useful in raising women's awareness of changes in their breast and body. The Malaysian Ministry of Health has included BSE as one activity of their Healthy Lifestyle Campaign. Public education efforts on BSE are intensified in the printed and electronic media since early 1994. A cross-sectional survey of randomly sampled female attendees of the outpatient clinic, Hospital Kuala Lumpur, aged 20 to 70, was conducted in March 1996. The main purpose was to assess their knowledge, attitude and practice of BSE. Results showed 60.7 % of selected respondents ever practice BSE but only 22.8 % practised it on a monthly basis as recommended. Compared to women who do not practise BSE, women who practised BSE were working, educated to at least secondary education and had family income of more than RM 1001. Total mean score for knowledge was 7.6 ± 2.3 and those with low knowledge consisted only 29.6 % of all respondents. The major sources of knowledge on BSE and breast cancer among these women were television and magazines. Total mean score for attitude among these women was 30 ± 3.1 and 79.4 % of them showed positive attitude towards BSE. The reasons given for not conducting BSE were absence of symptoms and knowledge on how to conduct BSE. This study also showed that BSE practice has a significant relationship with knowledge and attitude of respondents Knowledge was also significantly related with attitude (p values < 0.05 ). Knowledge play an important role in determining the practice of BSE among women. This is evident from logistic regression analysis which showed that knowledge remain significant after controlling selected confounders. In conclusion, despite the high percentage of women exposed to information about BSE and breast cancer, their knowledge and Gonfidence level are still low and only 22.8% respondents practiced BSE monthly as recommended

Robust human detection with occlusion handling by fusion of thermal and depth images from mobile robot

In this paper, a robust surveillance system to enable robots to detect humans in indoor environments is proposed. The proposed method is based on fusing information from thermal and depth images which allows the detection of human even under occlusion. The proposed method consists of three stages, pre-processing, ROI generation and object classification. A new dataset was developed to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method is able to detect multiple humans under occlusions and illumination variations

Nexus Between Personality Factors, Group Norms and Counterproductive Work Behaviour among Employees in Nigerian Universities

Counterproductive work behaviour is a negative concept that often harms the organization. Employers are worried about the growing issue of counterproductive work behaviour among employees. In minimizing this behaviour, this study examined personality and group norm as possible factors that could help to reduce counterproductive work behaviour among university employees. Multistage and systematic random sampling techniques were adopted to select 375 participants for the study. Personality Inventory Questionnaire (PIQ), Group Norms Questionnaire (GNQ) and Counterproductive Work Behaviour Questionnaire (CWBQ) were used to collect relevant data for the study. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to screen the data and perform the descriptive analysis while Partial Least Square (PLS-SEM) was used to do the inferential analysis. Findings revealed that employees with high personality factors (agreeableness, consciousness, extraversion and openness) will not engage in counterproductive work behaviour in universities where they work. Similarly, employees with high perceived group norms have tendency to obey the laid down rules and regulations, thus it will refrain them from indulging in negative behaviour. In view of the findings, it can be said that personality factors and group norms are vital concepts that can be used to discourage counterproductive work behaviour in universities. This study recommends that university management should give adequate attention to personality factors and group norms in the selection process during the recruitment exercise. This can be achieved by conducting personality inventory test process, with a view to use the outcome of the test in selecting teaching and non-teaching staff whose values are congruent with university’s rules and regulations screen out those whose values are questionable. Keywords: Personality factors, Group norms, Employees, Universities, Nigeri

Examining the Incidence, Depth and Severity of Food Insecurity among rural Households in Nigeria

A nationally representative sample of 3380 rural households from General Household Survey-panel data that adopt the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS) technique was used for this study.  Based on 2120 kcal Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) recommended per adult equivalent and USD 0.87 purchasing power parity (PPP), an annual food poverty threshold of (N50, 331.67) equivalent to USD 317.55 per annum was derived for Nigeria. This threshold is the cost for purchasing recommended daily food allowances (RDA) of an adult equivalent for healthy life in rural Nigeria estimated at N138. Despite the fact that agricultural sector employed over 70% of the country’s population overwhelmingly large segment of Nigerians especially farming families in rural areas are the most food insecure. The food security situation in Nigeria was examined using the Foster Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) class of decomposable food poverty measures that satisfy both monotonicity and transfer axioms. The food insecurity indices at national level was reported as (?=0, 46.36, ?=1, 0.43 and ?=2, 1.11 for and ?=0, 42.78, ?=1, 0.348 and ?=2, 7.45) for post-harvest seasons respectively. This implies that almost half of the rural households in Nigeria are food insecure subsisting on less the RDAs, however, depth and severity of food insecurity also differ.  Disaggregating the households based geo-political zones and some key socio-economic characteristics, further indicates a significant differences based on the relative size of the coefficient of ?. We conjecture that, the higher incidence of food security during post harvesting season might likely be due to inability of smallholder farmers to utilize their time into non-farm income generating activities due to high demand for labour for farm operations. The study recommends public policies that ensure provision of infrastructure such as roads and boosting farming among rural households. Keywords: Food Insecurity, FGT Index, Rural Households and Nigeri

An effective vision technique for microchip lead inspection

A new effective method for the microchip lead inspection for the chip manufacturing industry has been developed in this work. In contrast to the gray scale pattern matching technique this approach employs selected parameters of binary blobs to perform fault detection and measurements. This leads to a significant reduction of image processing time. A special combination of gray level filtering techniques with gray morphological operations enhances the borders of the lead images. Newly developed threshold calibration technique significantly improves the measurement accuracy. A unique statistical analysis has been developed to identify all possible lead defects in the chips. This method is rotationally and scale invariant and able to detect defective leads for the chips with different specifications. The minimum required information about the microchip is the number of leads

Work related determinants of breastfeeding discontinuation among employed mothers in Malaysia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This cross-sectional study assesses factors that contribute to discontinuing breastfeeding among employed mothers in Malaysia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A structured questionnaire was used in conducting this study involving all government health clinics in Petaling district between July and September 2006. Respondents were Malaysian women with children between the ages of six to twelve months who were formally employed. Factors studied were selected socio-demographic and work-related characteristics.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From a total of 290 respondents, 51% discontinued breastfeeding. The majority (54%) of mothers who discontinued breastfeeding had breastfed their babies for less than three months. Compared to Malay mothers, the risk of breastfeeding discontinuation were higher among Chinese (AOR 3.7, 95% CI: 1.7, 7.8) and Indian mothers (AOR 7.3, 95% CI 1.9, 27.4). Not having adequate breastfeeding facilities at the workplace was also a risk factor for breastfeeding discontinuation (AOR 1.8, 95% CI: 1.05, 3.1).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is important that workplaces provide adequate breastfeeding facilities such as a room in which to express breast milk and a refrigerator, and allow mothers flexible time to express breast milk.</p

Impact of gender on leisure participation: a cross sectional study among elderly population in Malaysia

Background: Leisure is a crucial aspect of life regardless of gender. This study aims to identify the different pattern of leisure involvement of elderly people in Selangor, Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 268 elderly aged 60 years and above from 8 health centers in four different districts of Selangor. Leisure participation was measured using a validated Leisure Participation Questionnaire (LPQ), specifically validated for Malaysian elderly, consisting of 25 activities, categorized into recreational (physical), cognitive, social and productive activities. Frequency of participation for each activity was measured using a 6-point likert scale ranging from 0 to 5. Results: Overall, the patterns of leisure participation among the male and female elderly in Malaysia were almost similar. Both gender shared the same five most commonly performed leisure activities on daily basis, which were having conversations while relaxing, reading, watching television, gardening and spending time with grandchildren. Meanwhile, the most unpopular leisure activities were playing golf, performing musical instruments and playing sports with more than 90.0% of them had never performed these activities during leisure time. It was also found that only recreational (physical) activity was significantly associated with gender, with male elderly having a higher mean score (2.91±3.20) respectively. Perceived social support received from friends was found to be an important and main determinant of leisure participation for both gender. Conclusion: The lacking of physical activity involvement among female elderly and the importance role of social support from friends should be acknowledged by relevant authorities in any elderly-related programme

Chondrosarcoma of the spine: A case report in Sarawak General Hospital

Introduction: Chondrosarcoma represent a heterogenous group of tumors characterized by their ability of cartilage formation. Chondrosarcoma of spine is a rare condition with estimated incidence around 2% to 12% . Most frequently localized in thoracic spine followed by cervical and lumbar region. Discussion: We herein report a case of spinal chondrosarcoma over thoracic spine in 58 years old gentleman. He presented with progressive swelling over the back and incomplete neurological deficit for 3 months. MRI thoracic spine showed T6 to T18 posterior spinal soft tissues, neoplastic mass with lamina arches, spinous process, adjacent posterior ribs bony erosion and spinal cord compression. Core biopsy revealed Chondrosarcoma, Grade 1. Patient underwent excision of thoracic mass, posterior instrumentation and fusion T4 -T10 with removal of pedicle of T6, T7,T8. Intraoperatively, noted tumor measuring 20cm x 20cm extending from T6-T8, involving spinous process, lamina and pedicle. Laminectomy done and tumor was excised in 1 piece together with lamina and spinous process. Postoperatively, muscle power improves to 5 from L3 to S1. Patient was discharge home well with wheelchair ambulation on day 14 post operation. Conclusion: Chondrosarcoma is known to be resistance to both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. So, surgery is critically importance in managing spinal chondrosarcoma. En-block resection of chondrosarcoma with disease free margin reduce recurrence as low as 3-8%. Knowing the facts, the stability will be greatly affected due to extensive involvement to spinal column, we decided to proceed with posterior instrumentation. Surgery should aim at preserving or even improving functionality, relieving pain and controlling local tumor recurrence, promising a prolonged survival

Acquisition of abstract words for cognitive robots

Abstract word learning and comprehension is a very crucial and important issue because of its application and problematic nature. This problem does not just belong to the cognitive robotics field, as it also has significance in neuroscience and cognitive science. There are many issues like symbol grounding problem and sensory motor processing within grounded cognition framework and conceptual knowledge representation methods that have to be addressed and solved for the acquisition of abstract words in cognitive robots. This paper explains these concepts and matters, and also elucidates how these are linked to this problem. In this paper, first symbol grounding problem is discussed, and after that an overview of grounded cognition be given along with detail of methods/ideas that suggest how abstract word representation could use sensory motor system. Finally, the computation methods used for the representation of conceptual knowledge are discussed. Two cognitive robotics models based on Neural network and Semantic network that ground abstract words are presented and compared via simulation experiment to find out the pros and cons of computation methods for this problem. The aim of this paper is to explore the building blocks of cognitive robotics model at theoretical and experimental level, for grounding of abstract words