Export performance of Malaysian Telecommunication products: market prospect and challenges

This study tries to examine the export competitiveness of selected telecommunication products by using indicators like Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Constant Market Share (CMS)analysis and Shift-share method and these are used for identifying potential export markets. The selected four categories of telecommunication products are taken into account on the basis of three digit level Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) for the period between 2000 and 2011. The RCA calculation clearly indicates an increasing strength of comparative advantage of Malaysia, except for the products(SITC-763) and (SITC-764). This is mainly due to the negligible import for these products. The CMS results suggest that export gain s of Malaysia for telecommunication products are largely attributed to the size of the market and also to its competitiveness effects. The CMS analysis also depicts that the competitiveness effect of telecommunication products are subsequently improved in general during the period III and I (2008-11and 2000-03) as compared to those of the period I and II (2000-03and 2004-07) and period II and III (2004-07 and 2008-11).The shift-share indicates that the USA, UK, Netherlands, Switzerlands, Japan and Germany are biggest importing countries of Malaysian telecommunication products although major challenges are the asian countries here

Clinico-pathological analysis of lymphoproliferative disorders: a 3 year study

Background: The incidence of lymphoproliferative disorders has increased in many parts of the world. Newer subtypes have been identified by the new WHO classification. Accurate subtyping of lymphomas is crucial for prompt treatment. Objective of the study was to assess the clinicopathological pattern of lymphoproliferative diseases diagnosed in Rajagiri hospital over a period of 3 years.Methods: A retrospective study on all patients who were diagnosed with lymphoma in Rajagiri hospital during January 2016 to December 2018 was conducted and the data were reviewed and analyzed.Results: A total of 151 patients were included in the study. Majority of the subjects (63%) were males. The predominant age group affected was 61-80 years. Mean age group was 58.46 years (SD=19.05 years). Most common presenting symptom was painless lymphadenopathy. B symptoms were seen in 18% of subjects and was found to be more commonly associated with B cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Most common lymph node involved was cervical lymph node, while the most common extra nodal site was bone marrow. Most common lymphoproliferative disorder was Diffuse large B cell Lymphoma. Lymph node involvement was found in 74% of patients, while hepatomegaly and splenomegaly were seen in 11% and 18.5% of patients. 20% of patients had secondary bone marrow involvement. 8 patients developed recurrent lesions involving other organs.Conclusions: Clinicopathologic patterns of lymphoproliferative disorders vary across various regions. A proper understanding of demographical distribution of lymphomas is very essential, as it can provide valuable clues for accurate diagnosis and treatment

The role of maternal echocardiography and uterine artery Doppler at 11-14 weeks in the prediction of pre-eclampsia in nulliparous women

Background: Pre-eclampsia (PE) complicates 2% of pregnancies and may have serious effects on mother and child, which makes it an important threat to public health in both developed and developing countries. Once high-risk women are identified, they can be targeted for more intense prenatal surveillance and preventative measures. Predicting PE in the first trimester requires the use of maternal echocardiography and the uterine artery pulsatility index (UAPI). Objective of the study was to see whether maternal echocardiography and uterine artery Doppler at 11-14 weeks can predict subsequent development of PE in nulliparous women.Methods: This prospective observational cohort study was carried out in outdoor patients of obstetrics and gynecology of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), with collaboration with department of cardiology, National Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (NINMAS), BSMMU, Dhaka, during 01 December 2013 to July 2015. A total of 135 healthy nulliparous women at 11-14 weeks of gestation were included in this study. Data was processed and analyzed by statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) version 24.0.Results: Among 135 patients, two (1.5%) patients developed preeclampsia during 1st follow-up (20-28 weeks) and four (2.9%) patients developed preeclampsia during (29-36 weeks). Mean total peripheral resistance was found to be 1332.0±75.2 dynes/sec/cm5 in preeclampsia and 1157.0±139.2 dynes/sec/cm5 in non preeclamptic pregnancy. The difference between two groups was statistically significant. MAP and total peripheral resistance were statistically significant (p<0.05) between two groups.Conclusions: In first trimester of pregnancy UAPI is the best predictor for detection of PE

Changes in Creatine Phosphokinase Isoenzymes After Varying Levels of Resistance Exercise

Creatine phosphokinase (CK) isoenzymes are found in various tissues, such as skeletal muscle (CK-MM), cardiac muscle (CK-MB), and the brain (CK-BB). Elevated CK isoenzymes indicate damage or injury to specific tissue. Using CK isoenzymes as a marker in order to indicate muscle damage as a result of different degrees of resistance exercise has not been clearly examined. Purpose: To determine the changes in CK isoenzymes following resistance exercise at different intensities. Methods: Ten healthy recreationally resistance-trained (at least 3 - 6 days per week for a minimum of one year) men participated in the study. The participants performed a lower body resistance exercise, composed of leg press and unilateral knee extension, at two different intensities (low: 50% of 1-RM and high: 80% of 1-RM) in random order. The volume of two intensities was similar. Overnight fasting serum samples were collected at baseline and 3-hr, 24-hr, and 48-hr post exercise for each intensity to determine CK-MM, CK-MB, and CK-BB using electrophoresis. A 2 X 4 ANOVA with repeated measures was used to examine the mean differences in intensity and time on dependent variables. The Bonferroni pairwise comparisons were conducted to locate the significant mean differences. If a significant interaction was found, the follow-up simple effects test was conducted. A p-value \u3c .05 was set for the statistical significance. Results: There was no significant main effect for intensity or time on CK-MM, CK-MB, or CK-BB. However, the significant interaction between intensity and time indicated that CK-MM was significantly higher (93.00±4.03 vs. 86.39±4.15%, p = 0.002) and CK-MB was significantly lower (7.13±4.22 vs. 12.37±3.30%, p = 0.006) at 48-hr following the high-intensity exercise trial as compared with the same time point of low intensity exercise trial. Conclusion: An increase in CK-MM several days following high intensity resistance indicates potential skeletal muscle damage associated with high intensity resistance exercise. Interestingly, high intensity resistance exercise yields less cardiac muscle damage than low intensity resistance exercise in recreationally-trained men

Factors determinant of patients’ satisfaction towards health tourism in Malaysia

Health tourism is a new form of tourism which is increasingly getting popularity around the world. Recently, Malaysia has become a favourite destination for health tourism. In order for Malaysia to attract more health tourists, it is imperative to determine the crucial factors concerning patients’ satisfaction. This research has been designed to analyze the factors that may affect patients’ satisfaction with health tourism, particularly in the context of Malaysia. Specifically, the study tries to examine the relationship between patients’ satisfaction and cost, service quality, motivation, destination image and perceived value. With the aim of achieving these objectives, this study has developed a framework on the basis of prior studies. In addition, data has been collected via self-structured questionnaire from patients visiting Malaysia, specifically Kuala Lumpur for the purpose of health tourism. The collected data from the respective respondents were analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). SPSS has been used in order to assess the demographic profile of the respondents, run exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. The findings of the study demonstrated that cost, service quality and motivation are significantly related to satisfaction toward health tourism, whereas destination image and perceived value are not

Uncertainty Estimation in Classification of MGNT Using Radiogenomics for Glioblastoma Patients

Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is one of the most malignant brain tumors among all high-grade brain cancers. Temozolomide (TMZ) is the first-line chemotherapeutic regimen for glioblastoma patients. The methylation status of the O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT) gene is a prognostic biomarker for tumor sensitivity to TMZ chemotherapy. However, the standardized procedure for assessing the methylation status of MGMT is an invasive surgical biopsy, and accuracy is susceptible to resection sample and heterogeneity of the tumor. Recently, radio-genomics which associates radiological image phenotype with genetic or molecular mutations has shown promise in the non-invasive assessment of radiotherapeutic treatment. This study proposes a machine-learning framework for MGMT classification with uncertainty analysis utilizing imaging features extracted from multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (mMRI). The imaging features include conventional texture, volumetric, and sophisticated fractal, and multi-resolution fractal texture features. The proposed method is evaluated with publicly available BraTS-TCIA-GBM pre-operative scans and TCGA datasets with 114 patients. The experiment with 10-fold cross-validation suggests that the fractal and multi-resolution fractal texture features offer an improved prediction of MGMT status. The uncertainty analysis using an ensemble of Stochastic Gradient Langevin Boosting models along with multi-resolution fractal features offers an accuracy of 71.74% and area under the curve of 0.76. Finally, analysis shows that our proposed method with uncertainty analysis offers improved predictive performance when compared with different well-known methods in the literature

Induced sputum versus gastric aspirate for microbiological confirmation of pulmonary tuberculosis in infants and young children: A prospective cohort study

Introduction: The diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) is challenging in children due to the paucibacillary nature of disease and difficulty in sample collection. Gastric lavage (GL) is recommended in children because children tend to swallow sputum and do not expectorate; however, it is invasive, stressful and requires admission. Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the yield of GL samples with that of induced sputum, which is a non-invasive method and can be done on an outpatient basis. Methods: A prospective cohort study was done on 55 children, who were &lt;6 years of age, admitted for suspected pulmonary TB (PTB) in Medical College, Aligarh, from December 2011 to December 2013. Sputum induction and GL were done on 3 consecutive days according to the standard procedure. All samples were stained for acid-fast bacilli and each sample was cultured for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Results: The median age of the children in the study group was 28 months. A positive smear and culture were positive for M. tuberculosis in 7.2% and 20% of children, respectively. There was no significant difference in smear positivity from induced sputum samples compared to gastric aspirate samples. However, the culture positivity for M. tuberculosis was better with induced sputum than gastric aspirate and the difference was statistically significant (p&lt;0.05). Sputum induction procedures were well tolerated; minor side effects were vomiting, mild epistaxis, coughing, or transient wheezing. Conclusion: Sputum induction is safe and useful for microbiological confirmation of TB in young children. This technique is preferable to GL for diagnosis of PTB

Patient’s Perception of Community Pharmacist in North Malabar region of Kerala, India: A questionnaire based study

Pharmacists as vital healthcare professionals play significant role in effective medication management and their use among the patients. However the perception of community pharmacist&nbsp; among the public needs to be assessed for effective role and further patient care. This questionnaire based study was aimed to identify the perception of patients towards the community pharmacist in north Malabar region of Kerala, India. The questionnaire consisted of 16 questions with sections evaluating the demographic details (age, sex, marital status, education level &amp; occupation) and the perception of patients towards the community pharmacist. The results were prepared based upon the responses obtained from 110 patients. The study respondents consisted of 51 (46.36%) adults (18-59 years) and 59 (53.63%) geriatrics (above 60 years). Based on their education level, 9 (8.18%), 35 (31.81%) and 66 (60%) participants were illiterate, secondary school and graduate holders respectively. The respondents of the study informed that the pharmacist enquired about their past medication history (58, 52.73%), any allergic reactions (21, 19.1%) and use of any herbal medication (31, 28.18%) prior to the dispensing process. The patients also responded that proper advice regarding dosage (90%), side effects (25%), storage (12%), healthy eating &amp; exercise (10%) were also provided by the concerned pharmacist. As a matter of fact, 91 out of 110 patients thought the pharmacist service were good, 17 thought they were fairly good and 2 were of the opinion that it was poor. The pharmacy rating was evaluated as good by 32 (29.09%), fairly good by 78 (70.90%) and no respondents were of opinion that the pharmacy was poor in its service. Through this study, we found that the overall perception of patients towards the pharmacist in concerned community pharmacy setting was good. To further improvise their role, continued pharmacy education programmes, better communication skills and good professional training must be imparted among the community pharmacists

Effectiveness of facebook towards online brand awareness : a study on Malaysian facebook users perspective

The purpose of this study is to determine the relative importance of facbook as compared to other strategies such as affiliate marketing and word of mouth in creating online brand awareness. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis is performed in the study. The study chooses 303 Malaysian frequent internet users as the respondents. In confirmatory factor analysis, a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach is applied to determine the relationship among the exogenous and endogenous constructs. The study finds facebook as the most influential online brand awareness creating strategies followed by the affiliated marketing and online word of mouth. In creating the online brand awareness; all the strategies have positive influence, however. The study can be a useful guideline for managerial implication in practice

The effect of different media ads on consumer’s purchase intension: a pragmatic exploration on the Bangladeshi fast food industry

Advertisement plays a significant role in terms of product or service characteristics clarification to the customer. Regardless of the advertisement’s types, a customer by the exposure of ads will go through specific steps of awareness. Realizing the current needs, this study aimed to examine the relationship between three different types of advertisements and their influence on the customer’s attitude towards fast food industry in Bangladesh. Data were collected by using convenient sampling method from Dhaka city in Bangladesh. The result of the research shows that, consumers have found the online advertising more interesting compared to media and print ads and its due to the rapid growth of internet users. Finally, based on the findings, some recommendations are proposed