A Study on the Level of Acceptance towards the Islamic Home Financing: Empirical Study in Malaysia

This paper offers a conceptual understanding of the Islamic housing loan (BaiBithaman Ajil) with a special focus on the operational matters and the factors that affect the acceptance of Bai-Bithaman Ajil. Approach: This paper incorporates relevant findings and issues surrounding the acceptance and implementation of the Islamic housing loan Findings: This paper offer more insights on the challenges faced by Islamic banking institutions to deal with both muslim and non-muslim markets in terms of the marketability of the product especially multi-racial society

Genotypic and functional comparisons of Epstein-barr virus latent membrane protein-1 from different stages of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), has all the typical characteristics of an oncogene and extensive studies have shown beyond doubt its abilities in cellular transformation giving rise to malignant phenotypes. NPC carcinogenesis, as typical as any other solid tumours, is a multi-step process. One of the most important EBV latent genes expressed in NPC is the viral oncogene, latent membrane protein-1 (LMP1)

ESL Writing and Written Corrective Feedback via Facebook

ESL Writing and Written Corrective Feedback via Facebook Shaidatul Akma Adi Kasuma, Malini Ganapathy, Debbita Tan Ai Li

One year changes in QCT and DXA bone densities following bariatric surgery in a multiethnic Asian cohort

n/

Production, safety, health effects and applications of diacylglycerol functional oil in food systems: a review

Diacylglycerol (DAG) is a world leading anti-obesity functional cooking oil synthesized via structural modification of conventional fats and oils. DAG exits in three stereoisomers namely sn-1,2-DAG, sn-1,3-DAG, and sn-2,3-DAG. DAG particularly sn-1,3-DAG demonstrated to have the potential in suppressing body fat accumulation and lowering postprandial serum triacylglycerol, cholesterol and glucose level. DAG also showed to improve bone health. This is attributed to DAG structure itself that caused it to absorb and digest via different metabolic pathway than conventional fats and oils. With its purported health benefits, many studies attempt to enzymatically or chemically synthesis DAG through various routes. DAG has also received wide attention as low calorie fat substitute and has been incorporated into various food matrixes. Despite being claimed as healthy cooking oil the safety of DAG still remained uncertain. DAG was banned from sale as it was found to contain probable carcinogen glycidol fatty acid esters. The article aims to provide a comprehensive and latest review of DAG emphasizing on its structure and properties, safety and regulation, process developments, metabolism and beneficial health attributes as well as its applications in the food industry

E-Queue mobile application

Waiting in line is a common experience in daily life, whether for a table at a popular restaurant or for the service at a bank.This experience is not always pleasant for most of people because they always have to wait for a long time to be serviced.The ability to interact with waiting customers is highly desirable because it allows businesses the opportunity to optimize their existing services and offer new services to waiting customers.However, interacting with individuals waiting in a queue has been inefficient and costly because employees must either talk with each waiting customer on an ongoing basis or the business must provide high tech devices that interact with each waiting customer.Agile methodology which will be used to develop this application, it incorporates the SDLC phases starting from the Planning phase up to the Maintenance phase.End of the research, we found that majority of respondents are prefer to use the proposed system compared with current method

Synthesis and Characterization of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles and Applications in the Removal of Heavy Metals from Industrial Wastewater

This study investigated the applicability of maghemite (γ-Fe 2 O 3 ) nanoparticles for the selective removal of toxic heavy metals from electroplating wastewater. The maghemite nanoparticles of 60 nm were synthesized using a coprecipitation method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Batch experiments were carried out for the removal of Pb 2+ ions from aqueous solutions by maghemite nanoparticles. The effects of contact time, initial concentration of Pb 2+ ions, solution pH, and salinity on the amount of Pb 2+ removed were investigated. The adsorption process was found to be highly pH dependent, which made the nanoparticles selectively adsorb this metal from wastewater. The adsorption of Pb 2+ reached equilibrium rapidly within 15 min and the adsorption data were well fitted with the Langmuir isotherm

Stabilization and release of palm tocotrienol emulsion fabricated using pH-sensitive calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) has been utilized as a pH-responsive component in various products. In this present work, palm tocotrienols-rich fraction (TRF) was successfully entrapped in a self-assembled oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion system by using CaCO3 as the stabilizer. The emulsion droplet size, viscosity and tocotrienols entrapment efficiency (EE) were strongly affected by varying the processing (homogenization speed and time) and formulation (CaCO3 and TRF concentrations) parameters. Our findings indicated that the combination of 5000 rpm homogenization speed, 15 min homogenization time, 0.75% CaCO3 concentration and 2% TRF concentration resulted in a high EE of tocotrienols (92.59–99.16%) and small droplet size (18.83 ± 1.36 µm). The resulting emulsion system readily released the entrapped tocotrienols across the pH range tested (pH 1–9); with relatively the highest release observed at pH 3. The current study presents a potential pH-sensitive emulsion system for the entrapment and delivery of palm tocotrienols

Effects of environmental stresses and in vitro digestion on the release of tocotrienols encapsulated within chitosan-alginate microcapsules

Considering the health benefits of tocotrienols, continuous works have been done on the encapsulation and delivery of these compounds. In this study, we encapsulated tocotrienols in chitosan-alginate microcapsules and evaluated their release profile. Generally, these tocotrienols microcapsules (TM) displayed high thermal stability. When subjected to pH adjustments (pH 1–9), we observed that the release of tocotrienols was the highest (33.78 ± 0.18%) under basic conditions. The TM were also unstable against the effect of ionic strength, with a high release (70.73 ± 0.04%) of tocotrienols even at a low sodium chloride concentration (50 mM). As for the individual isomers, δ-tocotrienol was the most sensitive to pH and ionic strength. In contrast, β-/γ-tocotrienols were the most ionic-stable isomers but more responsive toward thermal treatment. Simulated gastrointestinal model showed that the chitosan-alginate-based TM could be used to retain tocotrienols in the gastric and subsequently release them in the intestines for possible absorption

Physicochemical properties and crystallisation behaviour of bakery shortening produced from stearin fraction of palm-based diacyglycerol blended with various vegetable oils

The stearin fraction of palm-based diacylglycerol (PDAGS) was produced from dry fractionation of palm-based diacylglycerol (PDAG). Bakery shortening blends were produced by mixing PDAGS with either palm mid fraction, PMF (PDAGS/PMF), palm olein, POL(PDAGS/POL) or sunflower oil, SFO (PDAGS/SFO) at PDAGS molar fraction of XPDAGS = 0.4%, 0.5%, 0.6%, 0.7%, 0.8%, 0.9%. The physicochemical results obtained indicated that C16:0 and C18:1 were the dominant fatty acids for PDAGS/PMF and PDAGS/POL, while C18:1 and C18:2 were dominant in the PDAGS/SFO mixtures. SMP and SFC of the PDAGS were reduced with the addition of PMF, POL and SFO. Binary mixtures of PDAGS/PMF had better structural compatibility and full miscibility with each other. PDAGS/PMF and PDAGS/SFO crystallised in β′+β polymorphs in the presence of 0.4–0.5% PDAGS while PDAGS/POL resulted in β polymorphs crystal. The results gave indication that PDAGS: PMF at 50%:50% and 60%:40% (w/w) were the most suitable fat blend to be used as bakery shortening