Development of a healthy food and nutrition plan (Malaysia Healthy Food Plan Basket [MHFPB]) for lower-income households in Peninsular Malaysia

The food assistance program is used to help lower-income households get a nutritious diet. Many developed countries have developed food program to provide nutritional safety for households or individuals to promote good health but not in Malaysia. Thus, the aim of this study was to establish and develop a healthy food and nutrient plan called Malaysia Healthy Food Plan Basket [MHFPB] for lower–income households in Peninsular Malaysia. The development process of this food basket have several stages namely 1) Reference family definition; 2) Food group and serving selection based on Malaysian Dietary Guidelines; 3) Draft of food basket based on the food intake survey; 4) Nutrient analyses and food quantity specification to meet Recommended Nutrient Intake; 5) Definition of food outlet; 6) Food products selection for pricing; 7) Calculation method for MHFPB; 8) Validation of the MHFPB. The results showed that a total of 35 types of foods were included in the MHFPB with 20 types of fresh produce and 15 types of dried produce for reference family members of five. The nutrient content ranged between 88-113% of energy, while for micronutrients, it was quite difficult to achieve 100% of the recommendation, but most of the micronutrient targets for all family members were more than 65%. The weekly cost of foods in MHFPB was RM320.33, with the highest food price was anchovies (RM25.00/kg) and the cheapest food was watermelon (RM1.90/kg). The market survey shows that the increment of 1.5% to 3.3% for two consecutive months, with the price of fish and vegetable groups increase slightly. In conclusion, the food and nutrient plan can be used to supply healthy foods for lower-income households in Peninsular Malaysia, where the price of this plan was considered to be minimum cost to get healthy foods and assumed to be affordable for lower-income families, with a condition that a government give incentives to help this group to buy food. The social food protection program are needed to ensure that nutritious foods can be consumed by lower-income families in Peninsular Malaysia

Effect of biscuit baking conditions on the stability of microencapsulated 5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid and their physical properties

Among the folate compounds, 5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid (5-CH3THF) is regarded as one of the most bioactive forms of folate. It is regarded as the better source of folate to humans as compared to folic acid, a synthetic form of folate, which is used for fortifying foods to prevent the incidence of neural tube defects in the new born babies. The use of 5-CH3THF as an alternative fortificant, in place of folic acid, has been explored by various researchers. However, fortification of 5-CH3THF is problematic due to its lower stability. This study investigated the stability of microencapsulated 5-CH3THF in biscuits baked at various temperatures and times as well as changes in their physical properties. Microcapsule with pectin and alginate ratio of 80:20, prepared by spray drying, gave the highest retention (68.6%) of the 5-CH3THF, therefore, chosen for fortification. The encapsulated and unencapsulated 5-CH3THF were mixed separately with flour and biscuit ingredients and baked at 180°C, 200°C and 220°C, each for 5, 9 and 12 min. The inclusion of encapsulated and unencapsulated 5-CH3THF in the biscuit formulation and subsequent baking at various temperatures and times resulted in retention of 5-CH3THF from 19.1% to 1.7%. Microencapsulation of 5-CH3THF slightly improved the retention of 5-CH3THF over unencapsuated biscuits at 180°C for 5 min, but almost no such effect was achieved under baking temperatures of 200°C and 220°C. Physical analysis showed darker colour, harder texture and lower moisture content for biscuits baked at higher test temperatures. It seems intense heating condition that caused “over baking” of the biscuit likely to be responsible for the loss of the vitamin as well as less desirable physical properties of the biscuits

The Traumatic State of Psychology: An Investigation of the Challenges Psychologists Face When Aiming to Help Trauma Survivors in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This project will sought to investigate the difficult role that psychologists play in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly when they are trying to create meaningful change for trauma survivors from the apartheid era. Many survivors found the results of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) unsatisfactory, and thus still suffer from trauma (Kagee, Naidoo, & Van Wyk, 2013). There is a clear need in the present society of South Africa for a system which helps these trauma survivors find reconciliation and make peace with the atrocities of the past. Part of this system is the counseling psychologists that focus on the trauma that these survivors are still afflicted with. However, for a myriad of reasons, this task is an exceedingly difficult one for psychologists. In order to understand these challenges, the researcher will interview a variety of psychologists to learn what problems they face in their work as well as how they work to overcome these challenges and still provide effective care for their patients. This study will illuminate the difficulties that mental health professionals handle on a daily basis, and as a corollary will show how it is hard for mental health patients to fully move on from the apartheid era. This project is relevant because psychology is still in a transitional state in South Africa (Cooper & Nicholas, 2012a) and has a paramount role in shaping the future society in South Africa. Moreover, many people in South Africa suffer from lingering effects of the apartheid era, and their stories and situations are crucial to present-day South African society. This project can be of use to the South African people because it is hoped that a synthesis of the interviews will reveal commonalities and differences among counseling psychologists that can be of use to experts in this field. The results from the interviews showed that the majority of challenges counselors face come from the legacy of apartheid. In addition to the legacy of apartheid, the Western focus of psychology in South Africa also poses many challenges. A third major challenge is how to handle continuous traumatic stress because of how complicated it can be. Counselors have found many interesting solutions to these challenges including client-driven therapy, group therapy, community-oriented psychology, advocating beyond just counseling, and looking to evidence-based research

Attitude determination of GPS satellite vehicles

There is an increasing demand for navigation systems that has led to rapid development of Global Positioning System (GPS) across industries. Apart from position and speed, precise attitude measurements are needed for many GPS applications. This thesis presents techniques for attitude determination of satellite vehicles in both real-time and stand-alone positioning applications. The GPS system used is a differential GPS system that estimates the body frame baselines using at least four receivers. The attitude information is obtained using these baselines and projecting them onto a local level frame. Integer ambiguity is a major constraint in attitude determination. Least Squares Ambiguity Deco-relation method is implemented to fix the ambiguities prior to baseline estimation. Estimation techniques such as Least Squares and Kalman Filter are implemented for deriving baseline components. Finally, this system will compute body frame coordinates and attitude components in reference to the desired coordinate frames.Engineering Technology, Department o

ISSUES RELATED TO THE NUMERICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A SPARSE METHOD FOR THE SOLUTION OF VOLUME INTEGRAL EQUATIONS AT LOW FREQUENCIES

Computational electromagnetic modeling involves generating system matrices by discretizing integral equations and solving the resulting system of linear equations. Many methods of solving the system of linear equations exist and one such method is the factorization of the matrix using the so called local-global solution (LOGOS) modes. Computer codes to perform the discretization of the integral equations, filling of the matrix, and the subsequent LOGOS factorization have previously been developed by others. However, these codes are limited to complex double precision arithmetic only. This thesis extends and expands the existing computer by creating a more general implementation that is able to analyze a problem not only in complex double precision but also in real double precision and both complex and real single precision. The existing code is expanded using templates in Fortran 90 and the resulting generic code is used test the performance of the LOGOS (both OL- and NL-LOGOS) factorization on matrices generated by discretization of the volume integral equation. As part of this effort, we demonstrate for the first time that the LOGOS factorization provides an O(N log N) complexity solution to the volume integral equation formulation of low-frequency electromagnetic problems

Probiotic-loaded microcapsule system for human in situ folate production: Encapsulation and system validation

This study focused on the use of a new system, an alginate | -poly-l-lysine | alginate | chitosan microcapsule (APACM), able to immobilize a folate-producing probiotic, Lactococcus lactis ssp. cremoris (LLC), which provides a new approach to the utilization of capsules and probiotics for in situ production of vitamins. LLC is able to produce 95.25 ± 26 g·L 1 of folate, during 10 h, and was encapsulated in the APACM. APACM proved its capacity to protect LLC against the harsh conditions of a simulated digestion maintaining a viable concentration of 6 log CFU·mL 1of LLC. A nutrients exchange capacity test, was performed using Lactobacillus plantarum UM7, a high lactic acid producer was used here to avoid false negative results. The production and release of 2 g·L 1 of lactic acid was achieved through encapsulation of L. plantarum, after 20 h. The adhesion of APACM to epithelial cells was also quantified, yielding 38% and 33% of capsules adhered to HT-29 cells and Caco-2 cells, respectively.Fundacão para a Ciência e Tecnologia, POPH-QREN and FSE (FCT, Portugal) through grants, SFRH/BD/80800/2012 and SFRH/BPD/101181/2014, respectively. The authors thank the FCT Strategic ProjectPEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2013 and the project “BioInd—Biotechnology and Bioengineering for Improved Industrial and Agro-Food Processes”, ref. NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000028 co-funded by the Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2–O Novo Norte), QREN, FEDER

Compartmentalisation of cAMP in Brown Adipocytes

The second messenger, 3',5'-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) plays an important role in governing the function and differentiation of brown adipocytes. Upon the stimulation of Gs-coupled G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) adenylate cyclases are activated, which in turn produce cAMP. In cells, the levels of cyclic nucleotide regulated and controlled by phosphodiesterases (PDEs). This tight regulation of PDEs over cAMP enables them to generate subcellular microdomains. Given the importance of cAMP in brown adipocyte signalling, not much is known about how the spatio-temporal architecture of cAMP in adipocytes is organised. This study focussed on monitoring the cAMP dynamics real-time in pre- and mature murine brown adipocytes upon the activation of Gs-coupled GPCRs, namely the most widely studied different β-adrenergic receptors (β-ARs) and with some preliminary insights on adenosine (A2A and A2B) receptors. The expression of different PDEs and their various subtypes were confirmed via immunoblotting and qPCR analysis. Of interest for this study were PDE2, PDE3 and PDE4. Subcellular fractionation of these PDEs in brown adipocytes revealed their localisation mainly in the cytosol. Therefore, live cell imaging was established in murine pre- and mature brown adipocytes isolated from transgenic mice expressing a cytosolic Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) based biosensor (Epac1-camps). Firstly, cAMP compartmentation was studied in individual β-AR subtypes. Under the activation of every β-AR subtype, PDE4 was the main regulator of cytosolic cAMP in brown preadipocytes. While in mature adipocytes, upon β1-AR activation, PDE3 and PDE4 tightly controlled cAMP pools. This could be due to the upregulation of PDE3 on protein levels upon differentiation. Surprisingly, increase in PDE3 protein expression had no influence on controlling β3-induced cAMP, and the control of PDE4 was diminished in mature brown adipocytes. This led to a possible hypothesis that different loco-regio pools of cAMP could exist in brown adipocytes, one involving association of β1-AR with PDE3/4 in the cytosol, while another could be one with β3-AR more controlled by PDEs from other membrane compartments. These results could be recapitulated functionally, wherein lipolysis assay revealed that PDE3/4 tightly control β1-AR activated, whereas this control was lost in β3-AR initiated cAMP facilitating brown adipocyte lipolysis. Upon the stimulation of Gs-coupled adenosine receptors (A2A and A2B), PDE2 and PDE4 tightly control cAMP compartmentation in preadipocytes and the reason for this could also be that these PDEs are lowly expressed on protein levels. The regulation of PDE3 and PDE4 on A2A and A2B receptor-initiated cAMP was similar to the pattern observed with β3-AR activation indicating that these PDEs regulate receptors involved in process of activating brown adipocyte thermogenesis similarly