Detection and molecular characterization of leptospira spp. from environmental samples in Kelantan

Leptospirosis is an important worldwide zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic leptospires. In Malaysia, Leptospira spp. have been detected in humans, livestock, environmental samples and rodents. Saprophytic species was usually associated with the environment. However, a novel pathogenic species, Leptospira kmetyi has been isolated from the soil in Malaysia. Therefore, the aim of this study is to isolate Leptospira spp. from the soil and water in selected environment, to detect the pathogenic isolates and to determine their genetic relationship. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study. Soil and water samples were collected from well known markets and recreational areas in Kelantan. All samples were filtered and inoculated into modified Ellinghausen and McCullough medium supplemented with additional 5-fluorouracil. The cultures were incubated at 30°C for 30 days and examined under dark field microscope. Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) was performed to determine the serovar of the positive cultures. Positive cultures were then subjected to PCR using G1/G2, B64-I/B64-II and Sapro1/Sapro2 primers. The presence of virulence gene lipL32 was also determined. Partial sequences of 16S rRNA gene of the isolates were obtained for molecular identification of the isolates. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out to determine the genetic relatedness among isolates. A total of 144 samples comprised of water (market, n=36; recreational area, n=36) and soil (market, n=36; recreational area, n=36) were collected. Based on darkfield microscopic observations, 10% water and 36% soil cultures were positive for Leptospira spp. All isolates were negative for the hyperimmune sera tested in MAT. A total of 18 out of 33 cultures gave positive PCR assay results using G1/G2 and B64-I/B64-II primers. LipL32 gene was not detected in all of the isolates. 16S rRNA sequencing results showed that 31 out of 33 isolates were identified as Leptospira spp. There were one pathogenic species, Leptospira alstonii and eight intermediate species, L. wolffii (n=7), and L. licerasiae (n=1). Twenty two isolates were identified as nonpathogenic species, L. meyeri. The remaining two isolates were identified as species from other closely related genus, Leptonema illini. Based on phylogenetic analysis, the leptopsiral isolates were clearly separated to form three major clades namely pathogenic, intermediate and nonpathogenic clades. In conclusion, only one pathogenic leptospires, L. alstonii was isolated from environment in selected areas in Malaysia. The remaining isolates were intermediate and saprophytic groups. All isolates were found not to contain one of the highly conserve putative leptospiral virulence gene LipL32

Septic arthritis in a tertiary care hospital

Objectives: To study the epidemiological features of septic arthritis in the adult population and to identify the risk factors for mortality in septic arthritis.Methods: A five year reterospective study was performed on cases with septic arthritis admitted in our hospital between January 1999 and December 2004. Patients were identified according to ICD codes, 711.00. Data was recorded on a standardized data sheet and analyzed by SPSS 11.5 software.Results: A total of 116 patients were identified, 69 were male (59.5%) and 47 female (40.55%). Mean age of patients was 49.22 years. The most common presenting clinical features were joint swelling (99.1%) and fever (60.3%), Knee joint was the most common joint involved (65.5%) followed by hip (11.2%). Gram stains of synovial fluid was done in 67.2% of cases out of which 22.4% had positive stains. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common organism isolated from blood as well as synovial fluid (18.8%). Mean haemoglobin was 10.83gm/dl and 57.8% of patients had total leukocyte count less than 11,000/cumm. Platelet count was greater than 150,000/cumm in 90.5% patients. Hypertension, renal failure, chronic liver disease and elevated ESR were identified as some of the potential risk factors for higher mortality in a cohort with septic arthritis.CONCLUSION: Septic arthritis is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. These results highlight the importance of obtaining cultures before starting any treatment

Azble (coffee table) / Muhammad Azharuddin Zakaria

Shortage of material supply for furniture production is one the reason why wooden pallet is one of the alternatives to replace hardwood materials in making furniture. In this study, the Azble (Coffee Table) was designed and produced by using wooden pallet (pine species) and combination of bamboo for' the appearance enhancement. After Azble (Coffee Table) has been produced, the survey was done by randomly distributing a set of questionnaires to 139 correspondents in UiTM Jengka and Bandar Pusat Jengka, Pahang. There were a few issues have been analyzed such as raw material, design and marketing. Based on the results, most of correspondents of each factors agreed that these kinds of issues such as suitability of raw material, people devoted to wooden furniture, wooden pallet is cheap and easy to get, combination of wooden pallet with bamboo, color, following the trend, concept of green design and modern concept, suitability for indoor furniture, designated for living room, space and commercialized in the market meet the customer's satisfaction

PENGARUH KATALIS (NaOH) DALAM PROSES SERTA HASIL PENGOLAHAN OLI BEKAS MENJADI BAHAN BAKAR CAIR (BBC)

Penggunaan minyak pelumas yang semakin meningkat tiap tahunnya, maka limbah yang dihasilkan juga akan semakin meningkat. Berdasarkan kriteria limbah yang dikeluarkan oleh Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup, oli bekas termasuk kategori limbah B3. Meski oli bekas masih bisa dimanfaatkan, bila tidak dikelola dengan baik, ia bisa membahayakan lingkungan. Di lain pihak ketergantungan terhadap minyak bumi pada waktu yang sama akan terus meningkat akibat pertambahan penduduk dan kegiatan industri dan pembangunan. Akibat dari hal ini adalah harga energi yang semakin tinggi dan pasokan minyak yang menurun. Proses dalam penelitian ini adalah mengolah limbah oli bekas tersebut dengan metode perlakuan panas dan membandingkan hasil serta proses pengolahan limbah oli bekas dengan menggunakan katalis dan tanpa menggunakan katalis. Kemudian diuji sampel hasilnya dan dibandingkan dengan standar bahan bakar yang sudah ada. Katalis terbukti mempengaruhi proses serta hasil yang dihasilkan pada proses pengolahan oli bekas. Dapat dilihat pada pembahasan proses dengan menggunakan katalis lebih cepat menghasilkan produk minyak ketimbang dari proses tanpa menggunakan katalis, dan juga produk yang dihasilkan pada proses menggunakan katalis lebih banyak dan lebih bagus kualitasnya daripada produk yang dihasilkan tanpa menggunakan katalis. Disitu membuktikan bahwa fungsi katalis bekerja dengan baik yaitu sebagai pemercepat laju reaksi dan meningkatkan hasil reaksi yang dikehendaki

PROSES PENGOLAHAN LIMBAH B3 (OLI BEKAS) MENJADI BAHAN BAKAR CAIR DENGAN PERLAKUAN PANAS KONSTAN

The use of waste used oil is increasing every year, the resulting waste will also increase. Waste used oil is included in B3 waste which needs special handling. In line with the development of cities and regions, the volume of used oil continues to increase in line with the increase in the number of motorized vehicles and motorized machines. Even in rural areas, you can find small workshops, one of which is used oil. . In other words, the distribution of used oil is very wide from big cities to rural areas throughout Indonesia. The process in this research is changing the waste used oil into liquid fuel with the constant heat treatment. It is aimed to know the best result in the temperature of 250°C, 300°C and 350°C with pyrolysis process. The increase of temperature has a big effect toward the result of the exchanging process. The best result is at the temperature of 350°C which the volume got from the tap A is 1 liter and from the tap B is 0.2 liter. Than the tap sample A was tested against the exiting fuel standards. Based on the result of the specification test on the process of changing waste used oil, it was found that there were many weaknesses like the high viscosity value and the high content of water in the resultant product. But for other physical properties had fulfilled the standard of the fuel.Keywords: Temperature, used oil, pyrolysis, liquid fuel.

Malaria and pregnancy: the perspective in Pakistan

Objective: To study the effects of malaria on pregnancy outcome.Methods: A case control study conducted on patients identified by ICD-9 coding system of the hospital medical records. Demographic and clinical data recorded on standardized data sheet and analyzed using SPSS 11.5 software.Results: Of the total patients, 67.4% were multigravid and 32.6% were primigravid with 78.6% of patients having platelets \u3c 150,000. Mean haemoglobin was 9.4 gm/dl in patients and 12.2 gm/dl in controls. Plasmodium Vivax was accounted for 55.8%, P. Falciparum for 41.9%, and P. Ovale 2.3% of infections. In all, 48.8% of patients received oral Chloroquine, 16.3% oral Quinine, 30.3% intravenous Quinine, 20.9% of patients received combination treatment with IV Clindamycin, and one each patient received oral Artemether or oral halofantrine. Two patients had an abortion. One of the following complications including, threatened abortion, preterm labour, ARDS or Cerebral malaria, was observed in one patient each. Mean weight of babies born to cases was 2.8 kg (range 1.4-3.8) and of control babies was 3.2 kg (range 2.5-4.0 kg). No congenital malformations were reported.CONCLUSION: Plasmodium falciparum sp, moderate parasitic load, haemoglobin \u3c 10 gm/dL, platelet count \u3c 50,000/mm3 and IV quinine with loading dose of 20 mg/kg are identified as few of the potential risk factors for poor outcome in pregnancy

Communicative Cultural Dakwah of Abdurrahman Wahid in Pluralistic Society

The purpose of this study was to examine the background of the life and thoughts of Abdurrahman Wahid or known as Gus Dur in the context of dakwah and communication using a social hermeneutic approach. Critical thinking, history, context of religious issues and Gus Dur’s missionary movement are identified in his various works and socio-religious roles. This type of research is qualitative factual history and literature study, namely research that uses library materials as the main data source. The research approach used is a hermeneutic and historical-sociological approach. The research methods are historical descriptive methods and biographical reconstructions. The data collected from the two approaches were analyzed by descriptive analysis presented inductively based on the framework of Habermas’ communication theory. The results of this study shows: Gus Dur emphasized that Islam is as social ethics based on historical-critical, and normative-theological, that reality epistemologically is plural, and the dialogue is necessary

Determination of Optimum Condition on Coal Desulfurization by Electrolysis Method

Inorganic sulfur in coal consists mostly of iron sulfides called “pyritic sulfur” that is covalently bound to the carbon atoms. Before being used as a fuel, coal needs to be given early treatment desulfurization in an effort to reduce emissions of SO2 that could pollute the air because of coal combustion. Some method has been applied to reduce sulfur content and most of the effective coal desulfurization are based on chemical method. One of them that being hotly debated is electrolysis. This research is purposed to find the optimum condition for reducing sulfur content on lignite coal by electrolysis method. In this research, H2SO4 is used as the electrolyte solution, while for anode and cathode is using graphite and stainless steel. The optimum condition is obtained at 0,3 M H2SO4 with speed of 100 rpm stirring for 60 minutes operation time which decreases sulfur content of 75%.

Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine research and development in Malaysia: A scientometric study based on relevant conferences from 2004 to 2014

Purpose: To examine the trend of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) research progress. The study aims to fill the gap of literature dearth that systematically addresses the trend of TERM research and development in Malaysia. Methods: A scientometric study of published abstracts presented in International Conference on Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering 2004, National Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Scientific Meeting 2006 and Malaysian Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Scientific Meeting 2008-2014 was conducted. The study explored the publication productivity trends, authorship productivity, collaboration pattern, sources of funding and areas of interest. These data were examined in relation to the overall publications. Results: A total of 362 abstracts were published in 6 conferences from 2004 to 2014. Majority of publications were multi-authored involving public institutions of higher learning. The collaborations between local and international authors were noted. The active research areas and themes were identified. It can be appreciated that the conference participation expands with the coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.0775. Thus, Malaysian researchers seemed to be focusing on various cell sources, biomaterials, signaling factors and organ systems. A declining trend in these areas of interest is observed. Based on the study, certain prominent researchers and institutions are actively upholding the TERM research. Conclusion: The present study is hoped to shed some lights and serves as a reference towards the advancement of TERM research in Malaysia

Optimization of Gene Design, PCR Assembly and Site-Directed Mutagenesis for the Synthesis of Beauveria Bassiana Protease Gene

Synthetic gene construction is one of the components of synthetic biology. It can be used for various purposes such as to optimize gene expression. In this study, we proposed six predetermined criteria for designing oligos for the synthesis of the Beauveria bassiana protease gene. These criteria were set up to optimize the cost and to accommodate the oligos assembly. A total of 44 overlapping oligos were designed and synthesized 0.5 µM of oligos mixture was used in assembly PCR together with high fidelity DNA polymerase to produce 1.1 kbp fragment. The gene was visualized by agarose gel electrophoresis before subcloned into pCR™2.1-TOPO. The sequence of the gene was verified by DNA sequencing. Site-directed mutagenesis was performed to repair errors resulted from the gene synthesis. A sharp and distinguished band of the expected size of the protease gene was observed in agarose gel electrophoresis. Errors in the sequence which was detected by DNA sequencing were successfully repaired using our simplified site-directed mutagenesis protocol. The result indicated long DNA sequences (>1 kbp) can be synthesized with less error by using our method. Additionally, this method was easy to perform because it would require minimum optimization to synthesize other genes by following our guidelines