The life and health challenges of young Malaysian couples: results from a stakeholder consensus and engagement study to support non-communicable disease prevention

BACKGROUND: Malaysia faces burgeoning obesity and diabetes epidemics with a 250% and 88% increase respectively between 1996 and 2006. Identifying the health challenges of young adults in Malaysia, who constitute 27.5 % of the population, is critical for NCD prevention. The aim of the study was two-fold: (1) to achieve consensus amongst stakeholders on the most important challenge impacting the health of young adults, and (2) to engage with stakeholders to formulate a NCD prevention framework.METHODS: The Delphi Technique was utilised to achieve group consensus around the most important life and health challenges that young adults face in Malaysia. Subsequently, the results of the consensus component were shared with the stakeholders in an engagement workshop to obtain input on a NCD prevention framework.RESULTS: We found that life stress was a significant concern. It would seem that the apathy towards pursuing or maintaining a healthy lifestyle among young adults may be significantly influenced by the broader distal determinant of life stress. The high cost of living is suggested to be the main push factor for young working adults towards attaining better financial security to improve their livelihood. In turn, this leads to a more stressful lifestyle with less time to focus on healthier lifestyle choices.CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight a pivotal barrier to healthier lifestyles. By assisting young adults to cope with daily living coupled with realistic opportunities to make healthier dietary choices, be more active, and less sedentary could assist in the development of NCD health promotion strategies<br/

Capacity enrichment OCDMA based on algorithm of novel flexible cross correlation (FCC) address code

The flexible cross-correlation (FCC) address code for Spectral-Amplitude Coding Optical Code-Division Multiple-Access (SACOCDMA) systems has been developed.The FCC code has advantages, such as flexible cross-correlation property at any given number of users and weights, as well as effectively suppressed the impact of phase-induced intensity noise (PIIN) and multiple-access interference (MAI) cancellation property.The results revealed that the FCC code can accommodate 150 users, where FCC code offers 66 %, 172 %, 650 % and 900 % improvement as a contrast to 90, 55, 20 and 15 number of users for dynamic cyclic shift (DCS), modified double weight (MDW), modified frequency hopping (MFH) and Hadamard codes, respectively, for a permissible bit error rate (BER) of 10−9

Effective design for optical CDMA based on radio over fiber (RoF) technique

In this paper, the performance of OCDMA coding systems utilizing the radio over fiber (RoF) technique is presented. It has been done by means of conventional OptiSystem simulation tools, where the propagation of radio signals up to 50 km using standard single mode fiber (SMF) was investigated. The analysis was made based on the performance of eye diagram, bit rate, bit error rate and optical received power

Estimation of hydrological changes in a tropical watershed using multi-temporal land-use and dynamic modelling

The response of a watershed due to changes in its physical environment might result in floods, river erosions and siltations, subsequently affecting humans and biotas. Evaluating land-use changes is crucial for better assessment of hydrological conditions in a watershed system. The remote sensing imagery, field data collection, and land change modelling were used to produce the land-use maps of different spatiotemporal scale from 1989 to 2039. The generated maps are integrated into Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF) model, to evaluate the hydrological changes in Skudai River watershed in Malaysia. Total runoff is expected to account for 57% of the rainfall influx by 2039, a change of 2% from 1989 land-use, an indication of the low response of runoff to change in land-use. As built-up land increase by 3.39%, the average streamflow will increase by 0.05 m3/s. It will further reduce actual evapotranspiration (AET) by 0.39%, groundwater by 0.34% and change in storage by 0.38%. The sensitivity analysis of the hydrological elements to the land-use changes indicates that AET being the most sensitive then change in storage, and total runoff showing the lowest sensitivity. The result of the study provides information on the long-term impact of land-use on the hydrology of the tropical watershed, and it can be a useful tool in the planning and management of a watershed in a different perspective

Investigation of fiber/matrix adhesion: test speed and specimen shape effects in the cylinder test

The cylinder test, developed from the microdroplet test, was adapted to assess the interfacial adhesion strength between fiber and matrix. The sensitivity of cylinder test to pull-out speed and specimen geometry was measured. It was established that the effect of test speed can be described as a superposition of two opposite, simultaneous effects which have been modeled mathematically by fitting two parameter Weibull curves on the measured datas. Effects of the cylinder size and its geometrical relation on the measured strength values have been analyzed by finite element method. It was concluded that the geometry has a direct influence on the stress formation. Based on the results achieved, recommendations were given on how to perform the novel single fiber cylinder test

Performance analysis of FSO with haze attenuation consequence acclimatize in tropical rainforest environment

Free Space Optic (FSO) is an attractive link communication due to its outstanding capability to fulfil rapid demands in today’s technology era. The bandwidth and speed FSO possess is similar to fiber optics.However, FSO is highly preferred than fiber optics.This can be seen in comparing the point of the deployment time frame and cost effectiveness.However, since the atmosphere is the transmission medium for FSO, the connection may be attenuated as atmosphere condition varies.The attenuation is due to climate vulnerability and it will distort the FSO link performance especially rains and haze since this type of weather occurring throughout the year in tropical temperate region.This paper is focused on the analysis of haze attenuation with real visibility data from meteorological departments for the mid-year 2012 until mid-year of 2013 and constructs the tropical haze attenuation model especially the maximum range of FSO system deployment.Here, low and moderate visibility was concentrated more in this research due to worst condition for FSO link. The data used is analysed with theoretical part and simulated using Optisystem software 6.0 version and validated with experimental part (lab scale).Observation performance is characterized through bit error rate (BER) synchronization and power received with related to the link range relationship

Electrochemical integration of graphene with light absorbing copper-based thin films

We present an electrochemical route for the integration of graphene with light sensitive copper-based alloys used in optoelectronic applications. Graphene grown using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) transferred to glass is found to be a robust substrate on which photoconductive Cu_{x}S films of 1-2 um thickness can be deposited. The effect of growth parameters on the morphology and photoconductivity of Cu_{x}S films is presented. Current-voltage characterization and photoconductivity decay experiments are performed with graphene as one contact and silver epoxy as the other