Malaycious: usable mobile food finding application

Food-finding application is an application that provides users with classified and suggestive information about the local food one particular country. Apparently, there are numbers of the food-finding applications in the Malaysia’s apps market such as Malaysia Food diary, Hungry go where, Food Spotting etc. However, lacks of classified and suggestive information are the main limitations of the current applications.In order to overcome the limitations of the existing applications, features such as augmented reality, photographic food diary, and smart budget are implemented in the proposed solution.A survey is conducted to understand end-users insights on their usage of food finding application in Malaysia.Based on the gathered evidence, Malaycious is introduced as a new food finding application that bridges the gap of known challenges.Augmented reality (AR) is implemented in the proposed system to enrich users camera feed with contextual information.Users can now benefits from the ability to the place computer generated graphics in the field of vision.Besides that, shooting food becomes one of the fastest growing hobbies for people nowadays. Therefore, the proposed application will include a new feature called Photographic Food Diary to store that pictures that users capture.Therefore, users can recall back the images and also the information of the images.In addition, Smart Budget is a feature that help users to filter the food according to the preferences that user entered.The detail discussion were provided in the relation to the development of Malaycious.Therefore, it can be suggested that Malaycious provide usable and user-friendly food-finding application

Biofilm formation by Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Typhimurium on plastic cutting board and its transfer to dragon fruit

Adhesion of microorganism to food contact surface can become a source of microbial contamination.Enhanced resistances to environmental stresses are exhibited by biofilm producers. In this study, biofilm formation by Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Typhimurium on plastic cutting board was accessed before the evaluation of the transfer of these two pathogens from plastic cutting board to dragon fruit. By using crystal violet assay, it was found that the adhesion on plastic cutting board by these two pathogens was the greatest at time 12 h. Results showed that Salmonella adhesion is strain-dependent and varied with time. The mean transfer rate from contaminated plastic cutting board to dragon fruit was examined to be 0.79 and 0.72 for Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Typhimurium, respectively. This indicated that there is a risk of cross-contamination which should be concerned

Using RAPD-PCR as molecular assessment on the performance of CHROMAgar™ Listeria and PALCAM agar on isolation of Listeria spp. and L. monocytogenes from foods

In this study, Listeria spp. were isolated from naturally contaminated samples of beef burger, minced beef and sliced cheese using PALCAM and CHROMagar™. Samples were enriched with FDA-BAM method and plated on PALCAM and CHROMagar™ Listeria before confirmation using PCR on hlyA and LLO toxin genes specific to L. monocytogenes. Identification of isolates showed a total of 45 isolates of Listeria spp. and two L. monocytogenes. All the 47 isolates were then subjected to RAPD analysis using two oligomers (OPA14 and OPA15) and fingerprint clustering was able to cluster the L. monocytogenes from Listeria spp. based on isolation from agar types as well as L. monocytogenes from Listeria spp. Studies showed that OPA14 and OPA15 are useful for rapid discrimination of Listeria spp. and L. monocytogenes . The differences observed on the isolation of Listeria spp. from PALCAM and CHROMagar™ Listeria that may have an impact on epidemiological studies

Early exclusion of major adverse cardiac events in emergency department chest pain patients: A prospective observational study

Background The current evaluation of patients with chest pain presenting to an emergency department (ED) with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a lengthy process involving serial measurements of troponin. Objective We aimed to validate the diagnostic accuracy of a Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) score with single high-sensitive cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) for early rule out of 30-day major adverse cardiac events (MACE), and to compare the TIMI score with combinations of heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP) and a modified HEART (history, electrocardiogram, age, risk factors, troponin) score. Methods We recruited 602 consecutive adult patients with chest pain and suspected ACS in the ED. Each patient had TIMI and HEART scores, and a point-of-care H-FABP test. Results MACE occurred in 42 (7.0%) patients within 30 days. A low risk for 30-day MACE was identified by a modified TIMI score of 0 in 65 (11%) patients, and by a HEART score ≤ 2 in 96 (16%) patients. No MACE occurred in these groups, giving both scores a sensitivity of 100% (95% confidence interval [CI] 91.6–100%), and specificity of 11.6% (95% CI 9.2–14.5%) and 17.1% (95% CI 14.2–20.5%), respectively. Use of combined TIMI and HEART scores improved the specificity further to 22.0% (95% CI 18.7–25.6%) without lowering sensitivity. Early H-FABP measurement > 7 μg/L had a sensitivity of 41.5% (95% CI 27.8–56.6%) and a specificity of 91.1% (95% CI 88.4–93.2%) for predicting 30-day MACE. Conclusions A modified TIMI score of 0 or a HEART score of ≤ 2, incorporating a single hs-cTnT level, will identify patients with low risk of 30-day MACE for early discharge within 2 h of ED arrival

Formation of biofilm by Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 19112 at different incubation temperatures and concentrations of sodium chloride

Biofilm formation can lead to various consequences in the food processing line such as contamination and equipment breakdowns. Since formation of biofilm can occur in various conditions; this study was carried out using L. monocytogenes ATCC 19112 and its biofilm formation ability tested under various concentrations of sodium chloride and temperatures. Cultures of L. monocytogenes ATCC 19112 were placed in 96-well microtitre plate containing concentration of sodium chloride from 1–10% (w/v) and incubated at different temperature of 4°C, 30°C and 45°C for up to 60 h. Absorbance reading of crystal violet staining showed the density of biofilm formed in the 96-well microtitre plates was significantly higher when incubated in 4°C. The formation of biofilm also occurs at a faster rate at 4°C and higher optical density (OD 570 nm) was observed at 45°C. This shows that storage under formation of biofilm that may lead to a higher contamination along the processing line in the food industry. Formation of biofilm was found to be more dependent on temperature compared to sodium chloride stress

Biosafety assessment of Listeria monocytogenes in vegetarian burger patties in Malaysia

The aim of this study was to examine vegetarian burger patties manufactured by two producers in Malaysia for the presence of Listeria monocytogenes. Brand A was produced by an established food manufacturer while Brand B was produced by a small-scaled food producer. A total of 108 samples of vegetarian burger patties produced by both manufacturers were sampled from retail market and were analyzed by combined MPN-PCR and MPN plating method. Of all the samples tested, ten (9.3%) were found to be contaminated with L. monocytogenes. The L. monocytogenes contamination level in vegetarian burger patties manufactured by producer A (20.9% of the samples were contaminated with 3-1100 MPN/g of L. monocytogenes) was significantly higher (P<0.05) than vegetarian burger patties manufactured by producer B (1.5% of the samples harbored 9.2 MPN/g of L. monocytogenes). Based on the detection and isolation rate obtained with MPN-PCR and MPN-plating, the recovery rate of the L. monocytogenes was estimated to be only 40.0% by MPN-plating approach

Multiplex PCR for the concurrent detection and differentiation of Salmonella spp., Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Typhimurium

Salmonellosis outbreaks involving typhoid fever and human gastroenteritis are important diseases in tropical countries where hygienic conditions are often not maintained. A rapid and sensitive method to detect Salmonella spp., Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Typhimurium is needed to improve control and surveillance of typhoid fever and Salmonella gastroenteritis. Our objective was the concurrent detection and differentiation of these food-borne pathogens using a multiplex PCR. We therefore designed and optimized a multiplex PCR using three specific PCR primer pairs for the simultaneous detection of these pathogens. The concentration of each of the primer pairs, magnesium chloride concentration, and primer annealing temperature were optimized before verification of the specificity of the primer pairs. The target genes produced amplicons at 429 bp, 300 bp and 620 bp which were shown to be 100% specific to each target bacterium, Salmonella spp., Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Typhimurium, respectively

Intelligent web content filtering

This research focuses on investigating the Intelligent Classification Engine, which is a major module of the Offline Classification Agent for carrying out intelligent classification on the Web page contents.Master of Engineering (SCE

Consumer behavior of females in color cosmetics.

To find out the consumer behavior of females in color cosmetics with respect to their frequency of purchase, their brands purchased, product attributes they looked for, switching patterns and purchasing factors