Kebolehan Penaakulan Induktif Di Kalangan Pelajar Berumur 12 Tahun Di Sebuah Sekolah Rendah

Inductive reasoning requires an individual to reason from part to whole or from particular to general. It involves reasoning based on given premises wherein the conclusion arrived at is certain. This study attempts to determine the reliability of a 48-item Inductive Reasoning Test (IRT) developed by the researcher and to examine its relationship to academic achievement, socio-economic status and gende

Using interactive video conferencing for teaching a doctoral programme at Open University Malaysia

The paper will describe a pilot-project conducted over a period of two semesters using videoconferencing in delivering courses for the Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD) programme at the Open University Malaysia

Instructional Design Principles in the Development of an E-Learning Graduate Course

The paper reports the application of the science of instruction in the design and development of an e-Learning graduate course at Open University Malaysia (OUM) for the Masters of Education programme. Focus is on the principles applied to print material (content, learning outcomes, learning activities and assessment tasks) and its use in engineering face-to-face interaction, online collaboration, enhancing higher order thinking, utilisation of resources from the digital library, digital content bank, video and audio lectures. The learning and instructional theories underlying the design process of the graduate course are explicated

DEVELOPMENT OF MUCOADHESIVE TABLET OF PENTOXIFYLLINE USING A NATURAL POLYMER FROM MANILKARA ZAPOTA LINN

Objective: The present study was designed to develop a mucoadhesive tablet of pentoxifylline using the mucoadhesive natural polymer from the plant Manilkara zapota Linn. Methods: The tablets were formulated with three different concentrations of the isolated polymer and evaluated for thickness, weight variation, friability, hardness, swelling index, mucoadhesive strength and in vitro drug release. The swelling index was indirectly proportional to the mucoadhesive polymer of Manilkara zapota (MAPMZ) concentration. Results: The tablets formulated with a high concentration of MAPMZ showed good mucoadhesion strength in 5 min contact time. The in vitro drug release studies indicated that the drug release was directly proportional to MAPMZ concentration. The release kinetics indicated that the drug release was followed the zero-order. Conclusion: The MAPMZ showed the controlled release of pentoxifylline for a period of 12 h

ALTERATION OF PHARMACOKINETIC PARAMETERS OF PENTOXIFYLLINE USING NATURAL MUCOADHESIVE POLYMERS

Objective: The present study was aimed to alter the pharmacokinetic parameters of the drug pentoxifylline using a novel natural mucoadhesive polymer from two different plants, Manilkara zapotta Linn and Ocimum basilicum Linn. Methods: The polymer was isolated and six batches of mucoadhesive tablets of pentoxifylline was formulated with 3 different concentrations of each polymer. The best formulation from each of the polymer was selected and administered to rabbits and the plasma drug concentration was compared with the marketed formulation. The pharmacokinetic parameters such as such as Cmax, tmax, AUC, AUMC, λz, t1/2, and MRT were determined. Results: The plasma drug concentration vs time curve shows the extended-release of pentoxifylline when compared with the conventional marketed formulation. The results show that there is no change in the peak plasma concentration, but the significant difference was observed in t½, which showed approximately 2.5 fold increase from 2.44 to 6.87 h and the AUC showed five-fold increase from 22.40 to 117.19 μg*h/ml, and other pharmacokinetic parameters, when compared with the marketed formulation. Conclusion: The isolated polymer from the plants Manilkara zapotta Linn. and Ocimum basilicum Linn can be used as a carrier for developing mucoadhesive formulations and it alter the pharmacokinetic of pentoxifylline positively

APPLICATION OF NOVEL NATURAL MUCOADHESIVE POLYMER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENTOXIFYLLINE MUCOADHESIVE TABLETS

Objective: The present study was planned to develop a mucoadhesive tablet formulation of the drug pentoxifylline using natural mucoadhesive polymer from the plant Ocimum basilicum Linn. Methods: The isolated polymer was used to formulate the mucoadhesive tablets with 3 different concentrations. The tablets were formulated by using direct compression technique and evaluated for various parameters such as thickness, friability, weight variation, hardness, mucoadhesive strength, swelling index by standard methods, and the in vitro drug release studies in USP dissolution test apparatus type-II. Results: The swelling index was indirectly proportional to the polymer concentration and the tablets with a high concentration of polymer showed better mucoadhesive strength (28.5532±0.4660). The in vitro drug release showed that the drug release was indirectly proportional to the polymer concentration. The formulation F3 showed the controlled release of drug pentoxifylline (99.84±1.86) for 10 h. The mechanism of drug release was found to be Fickian diffusion and followed the zero-order kinetics, which was proved by its highest linearity (r2) in all the formulations. Conclusion: The tablets formulated with the isolated polymer of Ocimum basilicum Linn showed the good mucoadhesive mucoadhesive property and it controlled the release of the pentoxifylline

A novel RNA in situ hybridization assay for the long noncoding RNA SChLAP1 predicts poor clinical outcome after radical prostatectomy in clinically localized prostate cancer.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are an emerging class of oncogenic molecules implicated in a diverse range of human malignancies. We recently identified SChLAP1 as a novel lncRNA that demonstrates outlier expression in a subset of prostate cancers, promotes tumor cell invasion and metastasis, and associates with lethal disease. Based on these findings, we sought to develop an RNA in situ hybridization (ISH) assay for SChLAP1 to 1) investigate the spectrum of SChLAP1 expression from benign prostatic tissue to metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and 2) to determine whether SChLAP1 expression by ISH is associated with outcome after radical prostatectomy in patients with clinically localized disease. The results from our current study demonstrate that SChLAP1 expression increases with prostate cancer progression, and high SChLAP1 expression by ISH is associated with poor outcome after radical prostatectomy in patients with clinically localized prostate cancer by both univariate (hazard ratio = 2.343, P = .005) and multivariate (hazard ratio = 1.99, P = .032) Cox regression analyses. This study highlights a potential clinical utility for SChLAP1 ISH as a novel tissue-based biomarker assay for outcome prognostication after radical prostatectomy

Evaluating the effect of neighbourhood weight matrices on smoothing properties of Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) models

Background The Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) model is widely used in many small-area ecological studies to analyse outcomes measured at an areal level. There has been little evaluation of the influence of different neighbourhood weight matrix structures on the amount of smoothing performed by the CAR model. We examined this issue in detail. Methods We created several neighbourhood weight matrices and applied them to a large dataset of births and birth defects in New South Wales (NSW), Australia within 198 Statistical Local Areas. Between the years 1995–2003, there were 17,595 geocoded birth defects and 770,638 geocoded birth records with available data. Spatio-temporal models were developed with data from 1995–2000 and their fit evaluated within the following time period: 2001–2003. Results We were able to create four adjacency-based weight matrices, seven distance-based weight matrices and one matrix based on similarity in terms of a key covariate (i.e. maternal age). In terms of agreement between observed and predicted relative risks, categorised in epidemiologically relevant groups, generally the distance-based matrices performed better than the adjacency-based neighbourhoods. In terms of recovering the underlying risk structure, the weight-7 model (smoothing by maternal-age 'Covariate model') was able to correctly classify 35/47 high-risk areas (sensitivity 74%) with a specificity of 47%, and the 'Gravity' model had sensitivity and specificity values of 74% and 39% respectively. Conclusion We found considerable differences in the smoothing properties of the CAR model, depending on the type of neighbours specified. This in turn had an effect on the models' ability to recover the observed risk in an area. Prior to risk mapping or ecological modelling, an exploratory analysis of the neighbourhood weight matrix to guide the choice of a suitable weight matrix is recommended. Alternatively, the weight matrix can be chosen a priori based on decision-theoretic considerations including loss, cost and inferential aims