Shift of paradigm needed towards improving human-elephant coexistence in monoculture landscapes in Sabah

This article outlines the contemporary situation of the Bornean elephant Elephas maximus borneensis in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo), and focuses on the existing challenges that need to be addressed to enable people and elephants to coexist, particularly in man‐made landscapes dominated by oil‐palm plantations. Bornean elephants are confined mostly to Sabah, to the north‐east 5% of the Borneo Island. Sabah started to expand its commercial plantation sector in the early 1980s and is the largest producer of palm oil in Malaysia, contributing c. 10% of global output for this commodity. The rapid pace of plantation expansion has resulted in the loss of the majority of lowland areas that are also needed by large mammal species to sustain breeding populations. Elephants are extreme lowland/floodplain specialists, and they still attempt to use their former and preferred habitat, which is now mostly dominated by oil‐palm plantations. At the time of writing, the land‐use planning system favoured by the government insufficiently incorporates the ecological and management needs for elephants across the entire landscape. This article also highlights the need for better collaboration and coordination between stakeholders to address the increasing rate of human–elephant conflicts in Sabah

Making hard choices easier: a prospective, multicentre study to assess the efficacy of a fertility-related decision aid in young women with early-stage breast cancer

BACKGROUND: Fertility is a priority for many young women with breast cancer. Women need to be informed about interventions to retain fertility before chemotherapy so as to make good quality decisions. This study aimed to prospectively evaluate the efficacy of a fertility-related decision aid (DA). METHODS: A total of 120 newly diagnosed early-stage breast cancer patients from 19 Australian oncology clinics, aged 18–40 years and desired future fertility, were assessed on decisional conflict, knowledge, decision regret, and satisfaction about fertility-related treatment decisions. These were measured at baseline, 1 and 12 months, and were examined using linear mixed effects models. RESULTS: Compared with usual care, women who received the DA had reduced decisional conflict (β=−1.51; 95%CI: −2.54 to 0.48; P=0.004) and improved knowledge (β=0.09; 95%CI: 0.01–0.16; P=0.02), after adjusting for education, desire for children and baseline uncertainty. The DA was associated with reduced decisional regret at 1 year (β=−3.73; 95%CI: −7.12 to −0.35; P=0.031), after adjusting for education. Women who received the DA were more satisfied with the information received on the impact of cancer treatment on fertility (P<0.001), fertility options (P=0.005), and rated it more helpful (P=0.002), than those who received standard care. CONCLUSION: These findings support widespread use of this DA shortly after diagnosis (before chemotherapy) among younger breast cancer patients who have not completed their families

ToyBox Study Malaysia: improving healthy energy balance and obesity-related behaviours among pre-schoolers in Malaysia

The prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity is increasing in Malaysia and currently nearly 10% of children aged between 6 months and 12 years are overweight and almost 12% are obese. Early interventions to prevent excess weight gain are needed. ToyBox Study Malaysia is a feasibility project, funded by the Medical Research Council Newton-Ungku Omar Fund, to assess the practicalities of adapting the existing European ToyBox Study intervention programme to the Malaysian kindergarten setting. The main aims of all ToyBox programmes are related to improving four key energy balance-related behaviours, namely drinking water, eating healthy snacks and meals, reducing sedentary behaviour and increasing physical activity. Using stratified sampling, the ToyBox Study Malaysia intervention will be delivered and compared to usual practice by assessing behaviour, physical activity and health-related outcomes as measured by questionnaires, accelerometry and anthropometry. It is hoped that the evidence-based ToyBox Study Malaysia will help to achieve healthier energy balance-related behaviours in the children and their families and provide lifelong benefits to health. This article provides information on the dietary patterns, physical activity levels and prevalence of overweight and obesity in Malaysian children, and the approach of the ToyBox Study Malaysia

MT1-MMP cleaves Dll1 to negatively regulate Notch signalling to maintain normal B-cell development

Notch signalling controls the differentiation of haematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). Here, we show that loss of membrane-type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP, MMP14), a cell surface protease expressed in bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs), increases Notch signalling in HPCs and specifically impairs B-lymphocyte development. When co-cultured with BMSCs in vitro, HPCs differentiation towards B lymphocytes is significantly compromised on MT1-MMP-deficient BMSCs and this defect could be completely rescued by DAPT, a specific Notch signalling inhibitor. The defective B-lymphocyte development could also be largely rescued by DAPT in vivo. MT1-MMP interacts with Notch ligand Delta-like 1 (Dll1) and promotes its cleavage on cell surface in BMSCs. Ectopic MT1-MMP cleaves Dll1 and results in diminished Notch signalling in co-cultured cells. In addition, recombinant MT1-MMP cleaves a synthetic Dll1 peptide at the same site where MT1-MMP cleaves Dll1 on the cell surface. Our data suggest that MT1-MMP directly cleaves Dll1 on BMSCs to negatively regulate Notch signalling to specifically maintain normal B-cell development in bone marrow. © 2011 European Molecular Biology Organization.postprin

Growth Performance and Nutrient Uptake of Oil Palm Seedling in Prenursery Stage as Influenced by Oil Palm Waste Compost in Growing Media

The use of composted oil palm wastes in the oil palm nursery as an organic component of growing medium for oil palm seedlings seems promising in sustainable oil palm seedling production. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of six oil palm waste compost rates (0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%) on the growth performance of oil palm seedling and nutrient uptake in the prenursery stage (0–3 months). The addition of oil palm compost reduced the soil bulk density (1.32 to 0.53 g cm−3) and increased soil pH (4.7 to 5.1) of growth media. Oil palm waste compost treatment produced positive growth performance up to 70%. A regression analysis indicated in 72% of compost and topsoil mixture as a polybag growth medium was optimum in producing best growth performance of oil palm seedling in the prenursery stage. Foliar analysis implied highest nutrients uptake (N, P, K, Mg, Ca, Fe, Zn, and Cu) for seedlings grown in 60 to 100% compost media

Influence of layer thickness to the emission spectra in microcavity organic light emitting diodes

Microcavity organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) have attracted great attention because they can reduce the width of emission spectra from organic materials, enhance brightness and achieve multipeak emission from the same material. In this work, we have fabricated microcavity OLEDs with widely used organic materials, such as N,N'-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N'-diphenylbenzidine (NPB) as a hole transport layer and tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) (Alq) as emitting and electron transporting layer. These organic materials are sandwiched either between two thick silver mirrors or one thin copper and one thick silver mirrors. The influence of total cavity length (from 164 nm to 243nm) and the cavity Q-factor to the emission behavior has been investigated. In all cases, an OLED without bottom mirror, i.e. with the organic materials sandwiched between indium tin oxide and a thick silver mirror, has been fabricated for comparison. We have characterized the devices with photoluminescence, electroluminescence, and reflectance measurements. Multiple peaks have been observed for some devices at larger viewing angles

Elucidation of single atom catalysts for energy and sustainable chemical production: Synthesis, characterization and frontier science

The emergence of single atom sites as a frontier research area in catalysis has sparked extensive academic and industrial interest, especially for energy, environmental and chemicals production processes. Single atom catalysts (SACs) have shown remarkable performance in a variety of catalytic reactions, demonstrating high selectivity to the products of interest, long lifespan, high stability and more importantly high atomic metal utilization efficiency. In this review, we unveil in depth insights on development and achievements of SACs, including (a) Chronological progress on SACs development, (b) Recent advances in SACs synthesis, (c) Spatial and temporal SACs characterization techniques, (d) Application of SACs in different energy and chemical production, (e) Environmental and economic aspects of SACs, and (f) Current challenges, promising ideas and future prospects for SACs. On a whole, this review serves to enlighten scientists and engineers in developing fundamental catalytic understanding that can be applied into the future, both for academia or valorizing chemical processes

Process evaluation of a kindergarten-based intervention for obesity prevention in early childhood: the Toybox study Malaysia

BackgroundToybox is a kindergarten-based intervention program that targets sedentary behavior, snacking and drinking habits, as well as promoting physical activity in an effort to improve healthy energy balance-related behaviors among children attending kindergartens in Malaysia. The pilot of this program was conducted as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 837 children from 22 intervention kindergartens and 26 control kindergartens respectively. This paper outlines the process evaluation of this intervention.MethodsWe assessed five process indicators: recruitment, retention, dosage, fidelity, and satisfaction for the Toybox program. Data collection was conducted via teachers’ monthly logbooks, post-intervention feedback through questionnaires, and focus group discussions (FGD) with teachers, parents, and children. Data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods.ResultsA total of 1072 children were invited. Out of the 1001 children whose parents consented to join, only 837 completed the program (Retention rate: 88.4%). As high as 91% of the 44 teachers and their assistants engaged positively in one or more of the process evaluation data collection methods. In terms of dosage and fidelity, 76% of parents had received newsletters, tip cards, and posters at the appropriate times. All teachers and their assistants felt satisfied with the intervention program. However, they also mentioned some barriers to its implementation, including the lack of suitable indoor environments to conduct activities and the need to make kangaroo stories more interesting to captivate the children’s attention. As for parents, 88% of them were satisfied with the family-based activities and enjoyed them. They also felt that the materials provided were easy to understand and managed to improve their knowledge. Lastly, the children showed positive behaviors in consuming more water, fruits, and vegetables.ConclusionsThe Toybox program was deemed acceptable and feasible to implement by the parents and teachers. However, several factors need to be improved before it can be expanded and embedded as a routine practice across Malaysia

Effect of vessel wettability on the foamability of "ideal" surfactants and "real-world" beer heads

The ability to tailor the foaming properties of a solution by controlling its chemical composition is highly desirable and has been the subject of extensive research driven by a range of applications. However, the control of foams by varying the wettability of the foaming vessel has been less widely reported. This work investigates the effect of the wettability of the side walls of vessels used for the in situ generation of foam by shaking aqueous solutions of three different types of model surfactant systems (non-ionic, anionic and cationic surfactants) along with four different beers (Guinness Original, Banks’s Bitter, Bass No 1 and Harvest Pale). We found that hydrophilic vials increased the foamability only for the three model systems but increased foam stability for all foams except the model cationic system. We then compared stability of beer foams produced by shaking and pouring and demonstrated weak qualitative agreement between both foam methods. We also showed how wettability of the glass controls bubble nucleation for beers and champagne and used this effect to control exactly where bubbles form using simple wettability patterns