THE PREDICTORS OF SPORTS TOURISM INVOLVEMENT IN MALAYSIA: AN EXTREME SPORT OVERVIEW

Purpose of Study: Malaysian tourism sector has widened its scope by venturing into extreme sports tourism. With this new development, tourism opportunities are created and boosting the Malaysian tourism industry growth. The study highlights the development of extreme sports destination that closely related to international and tourists’ involvement and preferences in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to determine the predictors of sports tourism involvement in Malaysia from the extreme sports perspective. Specifically, it is going to investigate the possible significant predictors that possibly influenced the international or local tourists’ preferences in choosing Malaysia as their preferred extreme sports tourism destination. This study is restricted to international or local tourists who participated or going to participate in extreme sports activities in Malaysia. Methodology: This study proposes a theoretical framework that is developed based on the review of past researches and literatures. We identified five factors that possibly influenced international tourists or local tourists to choose Malaysia as their extreme sports tourism destination simultaneously involved in such activities. Those predictors are event popularity and entertainment, economics (costs and expenses), facilities and infrastructures, social, and environmental impact. Results: The proposed hypotheses predicted a significant and positive relationship exists between event popularity and entertainment, economics (costs and expenses), facilities and infrastructures, social, and environmental impact towards the tourist involvement and sports tourism development in Malaysia. For the future research, we proposed to further conduct an empirical analysis to test these hypotheses. Implications/Applications: This study could help tourism sectors to explore opportunities for development particularly in the extreme sports sectors in Malaysia.  This study is also useful for researchers, students, tourism operators, tourism sectors, government and society because it could increase the involvement of international tourist or local into the extreme sports activities in Malaysia.&nbsp

Implementation of a topographic artificial neural network wind speed prediction model for assessing onshore wind power potential in Sibu, Sarawak

This study presents a topographic machine learning based wind speed prediction model. Predicted and ground station data were used to examine the wind energy potential in Sibu. A terrain-based artificial neural network was developed using MATLAB/Simulink (2016). It was found that the developed model can predict wind speed values in areas where the model was implemented. The detailed wind resource assessment shows that the power and energy densities fall within Class 1, which is suitable for smallscale applications. The annual energy output of the selected wind turbines was found to be 2343.12– 12036.85 kWh/year with an annual capacity factor in the range of 2.16%–7.77%

Measurements and Analysis of Mobile Satellite Signal Performance Using Handheld GPS Receiver

There is need for experimental data in the less developed and developing countries such as Africa, Asia and Latin America for the study and analysis of mobile satellite signal performance for communication purposes. The experiments were carried out in open space area with no obstruction of the direct wave. Comparisons were made between the soft reformatted data obtained in Kano, Kota Samarahan in Sarawak and Fukuoka in Japan. Data acquisition system developments were designed to manage the open space environment satellite propagation data for the less develop regions, whereby adaptive graphical user interface (AGUI) was designed and developed to records the propagations data. Therefore the recorded data will be used to evaluate the signal performance in term of SNR, azimuth angles and satellite elevation angles. Results obtained from analysis will be used to determine the characteristics of the open space environment. This method can be used to encourage more experimental works in the less develop countries. The analysis produced an important part in the studies of the signal performance. The hyper-terminal intercepts and adaptive graphic user interface were used to evaluate the previous data acquisition system conducted in Fukuoka and Stuttgart. The analysis for ionospheric effect on Mobile Satellite (MS) was conducted by comparing data obtained in Kota Samarahan, Kano with the data obtained in Fukuoka Japan. The experimental work was conducted with reduced cost and simple equipments so as to encourage more experimental studies on MS signal performance. Future research studies can be done by designing a program that will link and monitor the pilot data acquisition system placed in remote areas. Rain sensor and satellite display view can be added to the AGUI

External antenna design for GPS signal reception enhancement

The working paper explains the detailed analysis of the low-cost design and implementation of 53.0 × 41.0 mm Single Microstrip Patch Antenna (SMPA) for handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver external use. A Computer Simulation Technology (CST) microwave studio technique was applied, using the dielectric of 5.0 and substrate thickness of 1.6 mm. The SMPA designed for data acquisition application operating on a single frequency on 1.57542 GHz. The antenna gain enhancement and the signal reception have improved the receiver line-of-sight (LOS) for an indoors experimental usage. However, the external antenna gain overcomes raw data quality degradation caused by the internal antenna due to low elevation angle and results in non LO

Control of somatosensory cortical processing by thalamic posterior medial nucleus: A new role of thalamus in cortical function

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Current knowledge of thalamocortical interaction comes mainly from studying lemniscal thalamic systems. Less is known about paralemniscal thalamic nuclei function. In the vibrissae system, the posterior medial nucleus (POm) is the corresponding paralemniscal nucleus. POm neurons project to L1 and L5A of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in the rat brain. It is known that L1 modifies sensory-evoked responses through control of intracortical excitability suggesting that L1 exerts an influence on whisker responses. Therefore, thalamocortical pathways targeting L1 could modulate cortical firing. Here, using a combination of electrophysiology and pharmacology in vivo, we have sought to determine how POm influences cortical processing. In our experiments, single unit recordings performed in urethane- anesthetized rats showed that POm imposes precise control on the magnitude and duration of supra- and infragranular barrel cortex whisker responses. Our findings demonstrated that L1 inputs from POm imposed a time and intensity dependent regulation on cortical sensory processing. Moreover, we found that blocking L1 GABAergic inhibition or blocking P/Q-type Ca2+ channels in L1 prevents POm adjustment of whisker responses in the barrel cortex. Additionally, we found that POm was also controlling the sensory processing in S2 and this regulation was modulated by corticofugal activity from L5 in S1. Taken together, our data demonstrate the determinant role exerted by the POm in the adjustment of somatosensory cortical processing and in the regulation of cortical processing between S1 and S2. We propose that this adjustment could be a thalamocortical gain regulation mechanism also present in the processing of information between cortical areas.This work was supported by a grant from Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (BFU2012- 36107

Endothelial cells and pulmonary arterial hypertension: apoptosis, proliferation, interaction and transdifferentiation

Severe pulmonary arterial hypertension, whether idiopathic or secondary, is characterized by structural alterations of microscopically small pulmonary arterioles. The vascular lesions in this group of pulmonary hypertensive diseases show actively proliferating endothelial cells without evidence of apoptosis. In this article, we review pathogenetic concepts of severe pulmonary arterial hypertension and explain the term "complex vascular lesion ", commonly named "plexiform lesion", with endothelial cell dysfunction, i.e., apoptosis, proliferation, interaction with smooth muscle cells and transdifferentiation

A review of enhanced paramedic roles during and after hospital handover of stroke, myocardial infarction and trauma patients

BackgroundAmbulance paramedics play a critical role expediting patient access to emergency treatments. Standardised handover communication frameworks have led to improvements in accuracy and speed of information transfer but their impact upon time-critical scenarios is unclear. Patient outcomes might be improved by paramedics staying for a limited time after handover to assist with shared patient care. We aimed to categorize and synthesise data from studies describing development/extension of the ambulance-based paramedic role during and after handover for time-critical conditions (trauma, stroke and myocardial infarction).MethodsWe conducted an electronic search of published literature (Jan 1990 to Sep 2016) by applying a structured strategy to eight bibliographic databases. Two reviewers independently assessed eligible studies of paramedics, emergency medical (or ambulance) technicians that reported on the development, evaluation or implementation of (i) generic or specific structured handovers applied to trauma, stroke or myocardial infarction (MI) patients; or (ii) paramedic-initiated care processes at handover or post-handover clinical activity directly related to patient care in secondary care for trauma, stroke and MI. Eligible studies had to report changes in health outcomes.ResultsWe did not identify any studies that evaluated the health impact of an emergency ambulance paramedic intervention following arrival at hospital. A narrative review was undertaken of 36 studies shortlisted at the full text stage which reported data relevant to time-critical clinical scenarios on structured handover tools/protocols; protocols/enhanced paramedic skills to improve handover; or protocols/enhanced paramedic skills leading to a change in in-hospital transfer location. These studies reported that (i) enhanced paramedic skills (diagnosis, clinical decision making and administration of treatment) might supplement handover information; (ii) structured handover tools and feedback on handover performance can impact positively on paramedic behaviour during clinical communication; and (iii) additional roles of paramedics after arrival at hospital was limited to ‘direct transportation’ of patients to imaging/specialist care facilities.ConclusionsThere is insufficient published evidence to make a recommendation regarding condition-specific handovers or extending the ambulance paramedic role across the secondary/tertiary care threshold to improve health outcomes. However, previous studies have reported non-clinical outcomes which suggest that structured handovers and enhanced paramedic actions after hospital arrival might be beneficial for time-critical conditions and further investigation is required

Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus Proteins - Relatedness of P175 with P80 and P125 and Evidence of Glycoprotein Processing

Three monoclonal antibodies, which recognized two nonoverlapping antigenic domains and were reactive to the bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) p80 protein, were found to cross react with the p125 protein of both cytopathic and noncytopathic BVDVs and a molecular weight 175000 BVDV protein (p175). Results from limited proteolysis and chemical cleavage experiments confirmed the relatedness of these three proteins. In pulse-chase experiments it was apparent that p175 was a transient protein, as it was diminished during the chase, with a half-life of about 30 min. However, both p125 and p80 were also observed in short-pulsed lysates. Furthermore, during the chase, radiolabel was not found to accumulate into p125 or p80. Rather, these two proteins were stable with half-lives greater than 2 h. A fourth nonglycosylated protein, p37, increased during the chase. Processing of several glycoproteins was evident in these experiments. A glycoprotein of molecular weight 75000 (gp75) diminished during the chase period, while glycoproteins gp62, gp48, and gp25 appeared or increased during the chase period. In contrast, the glycoprotein gp53 was a major protein in pulse-labeled cell lysates and remained constant throughout the chase period. In further experiments two stable forms of p80 differing in intramolecular disulphide bonding were observed

Wind energy potential in kuching areas of sarawak for small-scale power application

Energy is a catalyst for national development; most of the countries depend on hydrocarbon fuels for power generation. The traditional sources of energy are exorbitant and finite. In addition, they emit excessive carbon dioxide and other gases into the lower layer of the atmosphere, which influence the increase occurrence of global warming in the world. Recently, renewable energy's are gaining more attraction and attention in many parts of the globe, due to nonpolluting characteristics. Among the renewable, wind power has emerged as safest and cleanest resource that will satisfy the need of energy in a cost effective way. Wind energy system can suit the energy need for grid and stand-alone mode. This paper investigates the potential of wind energy in Kuching for small-scale power application. The study employed three years wind speed data spanning from 2010-2012 observed at the Kuching meteorological station. Details of the analysis carried out and potential of using wind energy systems are presented. Additionally, the output performances of two wind turbines are examined based on the computed Weibull distributio