Profiles of Diabetic Ketoacidosis in Multiethnic Diabetic Population of Malaysia

Purpose: To outline first-time patient profiles of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in the absence of reported incidence and mortality rates of DKA in Malaysian diabetic population.Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was designed and all medical records of patients with a discharge note of DKA were reviewed. Admissions from January 2009 to December 2011 were included. Data were analyzed in terms of socio-demographic variables in order to provide incidence and mortality rates. Medical history, as well as physical and biochemical characteristics were analyzed to report epidemiology of DKA patients.Results: Out of a total of 207 admissions for DKA, 132 were selected for the present study. Female (62.9 %), Malay ethnic (47.0 %) and the elderly (45.1 years and above) contributed most to DKA episodes. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (51.1 %) patients were prone to develop DKA. Most patients experienced mild to moderate episode of DKA by the time they sought medical attention. Although, there was no significant relationship between chronic co-morbidity and occurrence of DKA, hypertension (54.5 %), dyslipidemia (43.0 %) and cardiac disorders (35.6 %) were, however, the most frequently observed co-morbidities. Non-adherence (43.2 %), sepsis (31.9 %) and respiratory tract infection (12.2 %) were the most encountered precipitating factors for DKA episode. Mortality rate was as high as 17.6 %.Conclusion: With a higher incidence and mortality rate of DKA in Malaysia, the patterns observed in this study seem to be different from those of developed nations. Further extended studies need to be undertaken to elaborate regional and national patterns of DKA.Keywords: Incidence, Mortality, Diabetic ketoacidosis, Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiac disorders, Dyslipidemia, Comorbidit

Tax farming redux: experimental evidence on performance pay for tax collectors

Performance pay for tax collectors has the potential to raise revenues, but might come at a cost if it increases the bargaining power of tax collectors vis-à-vis taxpayers. We report the first large-scale field experiment on these issues, where we experimentally allocated 482 property tax units in Punjab, Pakistan, into one of three performance pay schemes or a control. After two years, incentivized units had 9.4 log points higher revenue than controls, which translates to a 46% higher growth rate. The scheme that rewarded purely on revenue did best, increasing revenue by 12.9 log points (64% higher growth rate), with little penalty for customer satisfaction and assessment accuracy compared to the two other schemes that explicitly also rewarded these dimensions. The revenue gains accrue from a small number of properties becoming taxed at their true value, which is substantially more than they had been taxed at previously. The majority of properties in incentivized areas in fact pay no more taxes, but instead report higher bribes. The results are consistent with a collusive setting in which performance pay increases collectors’ bargaining power over taxpayers, who have to either pay higher bribes to avoid being reassessed or pay substantially higher taxes if collusion breaks down

Electrohydrodynamic Processes and Their Affecting Parameters

Electrohydrodynamic processes such as electrospinning and electrospraying are simple, flexible, and cost-effective. Both processes use electrically charged jet of polymer solution for the fabrication of micro- or nanofibers and micro- or nanoparticle. Both of these electrodynamic techniques have been receiving increasing attention not only in the scientific community but also in industry. These fibers and particles offer several morphological and functional features that are suitable for tissue engineering in biomedical applications. The main apparatus used for both of these processes is almost the same. Both need electric voltage to induce charge on the droplet, which at optimized electric field leads to micro- or nanofibers and micro- or nanoparticles. Rayleigh in 1882, for the first time, theoretically estimated the maximum amount of charge that a liquid droplet could carry to change in a jet. This theory is now known as the “Rayleigh limit.” He predicted that a droplet on reaching Rayleigh limit would move as fine jets of liquid. More than 100 years later, Rayleigh limit theory was confirmed experimentally. Beside electric field there are other operating and solution parameters that need to be optimized before we obtain a desire product

Survey dataset on Muslim's religiosity, Muslim personality and work behavior

Data were collected from administration officers ranging from middle-management to top management of the five universities of Malaysia. The data was collected through a standardized and structured questionnaire. The variables of the study were religiosity, personality and work behavior of Muslims. Muslim work behavior construct formulated on the basis on collected data

Encapsulated virgin coconut oil as a nanoscale in vitro solution against multiple drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract Niosomes are excellent nanoscale vehicular systems that can carry a variety of drugs and (bioactive) compounds entrapped inside them. Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is the finest grade of coconut oil that is highly enriched with phenolic content, antioxidant activity and also comprises medium chain triglycerides. In this work, niosomes were encapsulated with VCO synthesized by a simple chemical method. The electron microscopy confirmed that spherical nanostructured lipid carrier molecules with a diameter in the range of 180–190 nm were produced. A zeta potential value of −42 mV was a testimony that these nanovehicles were having good stability. The natural oil loaded nanocarrier spheres proved to be potent antibacterial nano‐antibiotics against multiple drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. The antibacterial activity of these magic nano‐spheres was found to be better than ZnO (metallic oxides) nanoparticles. The nano‐antibiotics resulted in 17, 14 and 12 mm zones of inhibition against methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin‐resistant S. aureus (VRSA) and a (general) MDR strain of S. aureus in contrast to nanoparticles that resulted in zones of inhibitions 7, 8 and 6 mm for the same bacterial strains. Niosomes prove to be an excellent nanocarrier system that can encapsulate a number of bio‐active compounds

Forensic characterization of 15 autosomal STRs in four populations from Xinjiang, China, and genetic relationships with neighboring populations

© 2018 The Author(s). The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (XUARC) harbors 47 ethnic groups including the Manchu (MCH: 0.11%), Mongols (MGL: 0.81%), Kyrgyz (KGZ: 0.86%) and Uzbek (UZK: 0.066%). To establish DNA databases for these populations, allele frequency distributions for 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci were determined using the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR amplification kit. There was no evidence of departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in any of the four populations and minimal departure from linkage equilibrium (LE) for a very small number of pairwise combinations of loci. The probabilities of identity for the different populations ranged from 1 in 1.51 × 1017 (MCH) to 1 in 9.94 × 1018 (MGL), the combined powers of discrimination ranged from 0.99999999999999999824 (UZK) to 0.9999999999999999848 (MCH) and the combined probabilities of paternal exclusion ranged from 0.9999979323 (UZK) to 0.9999994839 (MCH). Genetic distances, a phylogenetic tree and principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the MCH, KGZ and UZK are genetically closer to the Han population of Liaoning and the Mongol population of Mongolia while the MGL are closer to Han, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Hong Kong Han and Russians living in China