Penyaringan metabolisme hati dan kajian mekanisme agen anti-malaria artemisinin dan dihidroartemisinin

This project is a collaboration between the author and another lecturer from the Pharmaceutical Chemistry discipline, PPS Farmasi, Assoc Prof Dr Chen Kit Lam, to develop more information on the anti-malaria agent, artemisinin and its synthetic deriavtives, dihydroartemisnin. The plant Artemisia annua has been successfully cultured in the test-tube by Dr Chris Teoh group from USM and information on the chemistry and pharmacology of these substance are being actively investigate by many workers, locally and internationally

Organizational stressor of staff negative behaviors among higher education deans: a post positivist multiple case study

Organizations and institutions today are now seeing rise of organizational stress and how it is directly contributing to the rise of financial and personal cost of mental health issues among its workers (Patty, 2016). The all important field of higher education is not spared and is also undergoing a paradigm shift, as a historically low competition industry to a sudden highly competitive industry (Otara, 2015). With these drastic changes, higher education deans are now plagued by a myriad of organizational stressors. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigated this phenomenon, encompassing the interview techniques of Patton (2002) and the validity and reliability exercises of Creswell (2014). Deans from one institution was found to encounter staff related organizational stressors which consisted of lecturer low performance, lecturer going against dean, lecturer against lecturer, lecturer negative behavior, lecturer low work ethic, and administrative staff negative work elements. This confirmed on the existence of organizational stressors among higher education deans and may be used to spur future research to reduce or eliminated this phenomenon

Behavioral activation for dementia caregivers: scheduling pleasant events and enhancing communications

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On the Hardware/Software Design and Implementation of a High Definition Multiview Video Surveillance System

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Women online entrepreneurship and social environment in Malaysia: some preliminary findings

Entrepreneurship based on information communication technology (ICT) and the internet is fast gaining popularity as a means of wealth creation and property acquisition in many parts of the world today. Known as digital entrepreneurship, e-commerce, e-entrepreneurship or on-line entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial activities are conducted using the ICT and internet (e.g., social media) as means of business communication, promotion and product development. Women’s involvement in on-line entrepreneurship is rapidly growing in Malaysia. However, interestingly, there very few academic studies conducted on the nature of women on-line entrepreneurship than the studies on women conventional entrepreneurship in Malaysia. With the intention to fill this literature gap, the authors of this paper carried out a qualitative exploratory research of women on-line entrepreneurship in various small sized enterprises in Malaysia. This paper particularly concentrates on discussing some early findings on the role of social environment, specifically social networks, in influencing the women’s business inception, sustainability and growth. Women were found to have the ability to leverage on their social network environments linking the physical real world and the virtual world. The social environment is also found to have impact on the development of some entrepreneurial leadership qualities such as sharing as opposed to command, throughout the women’s entrepreneurial involvement. Although the research is still on- going, the authors hope that the findings can offer a better understanding on the role of social environment in women on-line entrepreneurship

The characteristics of summer sub-hourly rainfall over the southern UK in a high-resolution convective permitting model

Flash flooding is often caused by sub-hourly rainfall extremes. Here, we examine southern UK sub-hourly 10 min rainfall from Met Office state-of-the-art convective-permitting model simulations for the present and future climate. Observational studies have shown that the duration of rainfall can decrease with temperature in summer in some regions. The duration decrease coincides with an intensification of sub-hourly rainfall extremes. This suggests that rainfall duration and sub-hourly rainfall intensity may change in future under climate change with important implications for future changes in flash flooding risk. The simulations show clear intensification of sub-hourly rainfall, but we fail to detect any decrease in rainfall duration. In fact, model results suggest the opposite with a slight (probably insignificant) lengthening of both extreme and non-extreme rainfall events in the future. The lengthening is driven by rainfall intensification without clear changes in the shape of the event profile. Other metrics are also examined, including the relationship between intense 10 min rainfall and temperature, and return levels changes; all are consistent with results found for hourly rainfall. No evaluation of model performance at the sub-hourly timescale is possible, highlighting the need for high-quality sub-hourly observations. Such sub-hourly observations will advance our understanding of the future risks of flash flooding

Role of hepatitis B virus genotypes in chronic hepatitis B exacerbation

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes and precore and core promoter mutations were determined in 318 patients with HBV. Patients infected with HBV genotype B had a higher median alanine aminotransferase level and bilirubin level and a lower median albumin level during exacerbations of disease, compared with patients infected with HBV genotype C (all P < .001). By logistic regression analysis, HBV genotype B infection (P = .014) and low albumin levels (P = .006) were independently associated with a higher risk of hepatic decompensation during severe exacerbations of disease. Patients infected with genotype B had a significantly higher mortality due to hepatic decompensation than did patients with genotype C (70% vs. 27.8%; P = .05).published_or_final_versio

Coherent optical wavelength conversion via cavity-optomechanics

We theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate coherent wavelength conversion of optical photons using photon-phonon translation in a cavity-optomechanical system. For an engineered silicon optomechanical crystal nanocavity supporting a 4 GHz localized phonon mode, optical signals in a 1.5 MHz bandwidth are coherently converted over a 11.2 THz frequency span between one cavity mode at wavelength 1460 nm and a second cavity mode at 1545 nm with a 93% internal (2% external) peak efficiency. The thermal and quantum limiting noise involved in the conversion process is also analyzed, and in terms of an equivalent photon number signal level are found to correspond to an internal noise level of only 6 and 4x10-3 quanta, respectively.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, appendi

Compound wind and rainfall extremes: Drivers and future changes over the UK and Ireland

\ua9 2024The co-occurrence of wind and rainfall extremes can yield larger impacts than when either hazard occurs in isolation. This study assesses compound extremes produced by Extra-tropical cyclones (ETCs) during winter from two perspectives. Firstly, we assess ETCs with extreme footprints of wind and rainfall; footprint severity is measured using the wind severity index (WSI) and rain severity index (RSI) which account for the intensity, duration, and area of either hazard. Secondly, we assess local co-occurrences of 6-hourly wind and rainfall extremes within ETCs. We quantify the likelihood of compound extremes in these two perspectives and characterise a number of their drivers (jet stream, cyclone tracks, and fronts) in control (1981–2000) and future (2060–2081, RCP8.5) climate simulations from a 12-member ensemble of local convection-permitting 2.2 km climate projections over the UK and Ireland. Simulations indicate an increased probability of ETCs producing extremely severe WSI and RSI in the same storm in the future, occurring 3.6 times more frequently (every 5 years compared to every 18 years in the control). This frequency increase is mainly driven by increased rainfall intensities, pointing to a predominantly thermodynamic driver. However, future winds also increase alongside a strengthened jet stream, while a southward displaced jet and cyclone track in these events leads to a dynamically-enhanced increase in temperature. This intensifies rainfall in line with Clausius-Clapeyron, and potentially wind speeds due to additional latent heat energy. Future simulations also indicate an increase in the land area experiencing locally co-occurring wind and rainfall extremes; largely explained by increased rainfall within warm and cold fronts, although the relative increase is highest near cold fronts suggesting increased convective activity. These locally co-occurring extremes are more likely in storms with severe WSI and RSI, but not exclusively so as local co-occurrence requires the coincidence of separate drivers within ETCs. Overall, our results reveal many contributing factors to compound wind and rainfall extremes and their future changes. Further work is needed to understand the uncertainty in the future response by sampling additional climate models

A conceptual model of performance measurement for supply chains

Supply chain management (SCM) has gained a tremendous amount of attention from both industries and researchers since the last decade. Until now, there are numerous papers, articles, and reports that address SCM, but there is still a lack of integration between the existing performance measurement methods and practical requirements for the SCM. An innovative performance measurement method is proposed to provide necessary assistance for performance improvement in SCM. The proposed method will address this purpose in these four aspects: a simplified supply chain model; tangible and intangible performance measures in multiple dimensions; a cross-organizational performance measurement; and fuzzy set theory and weighted average method.published_or_final_versio