Education and awareness of modern health care amongst aboriginal people: the case of the Jakuns of Peninsular Malaysia

Previous studies have indicated that the resettlement of the Orang Asli communities into areas nearer to towns was with the intention of improving the health conditions of the aboriginals. Subsequent researches have since focused on the relation between mainstream orthodox medical approaches and traditional healing practices in search of improved approaches to advance further the health cause of the aboriginal communities. However, none of these works have addressed the central question of how the Orang Asli have been adapting themselves to the mainstream healthcare system while still holding strong beliefs in their traditional medicine. To close the gap this study examined the readiness and intentions of the Orang Asli in adapting to modern health care approach amidst old traditional health beliefs and healings practices. A qualitative study based on in-depth interviews and field observations was carried out at a Jakun village of Kampung Kedaik, Rompin, Pahang involving 12 male and 13 female informants between 18 – 70 years old. Results of the study showed that as the Orang Asli people received proper education they appeared to think about health differently. Most of the informants preferred modern over traditional medicine predominantly because of their deteriorating faith in, and relative inaccessibility to traditional medicine. The findings implied that in this modern day most of the indigenous communities were open to social change which in this context included modern health care so as to improve their health conditions

Controlled Growth, Patterning and Placement of Carbon Nanotube Thin Films

Controlled growth, patterning and placement of carbon nanotube (CNT) thin films for electronic applications are demonstrated. The density of CNT films is controlled by optimizing the feed gas composition as well as the concentration of growth catalyst in a chemical vapor deposition process. Densities of CNTs ranging from 0.02 CNTs/{\mu}m^2 to 1.29 CNTs/{\mu}m^2 are obtained. The resulting pristine CNT thin films are then successfully patterned using either pre-growth or post-growth techniques. By developing a layered photoresist process that is compatible with ferric nitrate catalyst, significant improvements over popular pre-growth patterning methods are obtained. Limitations of traditional post-growth patterning methods are circumvented by selective transfer printing of CNTs with either thermoplastic or metallic stamps. Resulting as-grown patterns of CNT thin films have edge roughness (< 1 {\mu}m) and resolution (< 5 {\mu}m) comparable to standard photolithography. Bottom gate CNT thin film devices are fabricated with field-effect mobilities up to 20 cm^2/Vs and on/off ratios of the order of 10^3. The patterning and transfer printing methods discussed here have a potential to be generalized to include other nanomaterials in new device configurations

Small Fermi energy and phonon anharmonicity in MgB_2 and related compounds

The remarkable anharmonicity of the E_{2g} phonon in MgB_2 has been suggested in literature to play a primary role in its superconducting pairing. We investigate, by means of LDA calculations, the microscopic origin of such an anharmonicity in MgB_2, AlB_2, and in hole-doped graphite. We find that the anharmonic character of the E_{2g} phonon is essentially driven by the small Fermi energy of the sigma holes. We present a simple analytic model which allows us to understand in microscopic terms the role of the small Fermi energy and of the electronic structure. The relation between anharmonicity and nonadiabaticity is pointed out and discussed in relation to various materials.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures replaced with final version, accepted on Physical Review

Electromagnetically induced transparency in multi-level cascade scheme of cold rubidium atoms

We report an experimental investigation of electromagnetically induced transparency in a multi-level cascade system of cold atoms. The absorption spectral profiles of the probe light in the multi-level cascade system were observed in cold Rb-85 atoms confined in a magneto-optical trap, and the dependence of the spectral profile on the intensity of the coupling laser was investigated. The experimental measurements agree with the theoretical calculations based on the density matrix equations of the rubidium cascade system.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Gamma Ray Lines from a Universal Extra Dimension

Indirect Dark Matter searches are based on the observation of secondary particles produced by the annihilation or decay of Dark Matter. Among them, gamma-rays are perhaps the most promising messengers, as they do not suffer deflection or absorption on Galactic scales, so their observation would directly reveal the position and the energy spectrum of the emitting source. Here, we study the detailed gamma-ray energy spectrum of Kaluza--Klein Dark Matter in a theory with 5 Universal Extra Dimensions. We focus in particular on the two body annihilation of Dark Matter particles into a photon and another particle, which produces monochromatic photons, resulting in a line in the energy spectrum of gamma rays. Previous calculations in the context of the five dimensional UED model have computed the line signal from annihilations into \gamma \gamma, but we extend these results to include \gamma Z and \gamma H final states. We find that these spectral lines are subdominant compared to the predicted \gamma \gamma signal, but they would be important as follow-up signals in the event of the observation of the \gamma \gamma line, in order to distinguish the 5d UED model from other theoretical scenarios.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure

Modeling electrolytically top gated graphene

We investigate doping of a single-layer graphene in the presence of electrolytic top gating. The interfacial phenomena is modeled using a modified Poisson-Boltzmann equation for an aqueous solution of simple salt. We demonstrate both the sensitivity of graphene's doping levels to the salt concentration and the importance of quantum capacitance that arises due to the smallness of the Debye screening length in the electrolyte.Comment: 7 pages, including 4 figures, submitted to Nanoscale Research Letters for a special issue related to the NGC 2009 conference (http://asdn.net/ngc2009/index.shtml

Microwave-induced control of Free Electron Laser radiation

The dynamical response of a relativistic bunch of electrons injected in a planar magnetic undulator and interacting with a counterpropagating electromagnetic wave is studied. We demonstrate a resonance condition for which the free electron laser (FEL) dynamics is strongly influenced by the presence of the external field. It opens up the possibility of control of short wavelength FEL emission characteristics by changing the parameters of the microwave field without requiring change in the undulator's geometry or configuration. Numerical examples, assuming realistic parameter values analogous to those of the TTF-FEL, currently under development at DESY, are given for possible control of the amplitude or the polarization of the emitted radiation.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Long range facial image acquisition and quality

Abstract This chapter introduces issues in long range facial image acquisition and measures for image quality and their usage. Section 1, on image acquisition for face recognition discusses issues in lighting, sensor, lens, blur issues, which impact short-range biometrics, but are more pronounced in long-range biometrics. Section 2 introduces the design of controlled experiments for long range face, and why they are needed. Section 3 introduces some of the weather and atmospheric effects that occur for long-range imaging, with numerous of examples. Section 4 addresses measurements of “system quality”, including image-quality measures and their use in prediction of face recognition algorithm. That section introduces the concept of failure prediction and techniques for analyzing different “quality ” measures. The section ends with a discussion of post-recognition ”failure prediction ” and its potential role as a feedback mechanism in acquisition. Each section includes a collection of open-ended questions to challenge the reader to think about the concepts more deeply. For some of the questions we answer them after they are introduced; others are left as an exercise for the reader. 1 Image Acquisition Before any recognition can even be attempted, they system must acquire an image of the subject with sufficient quality and resolution to detect and recognize the face. The issues examined in this section are the sensor-issues in lighting, image/sensor resolution issues, the field-of view, the depth of field, and effects of motion blur

The association between serum prolactin levels and interleukin-6 and systemic lupus erythematosus activity

Based on the recent evidence of association between hyperprolactinemia and systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity (SLEDAI), a study was conducted to analyze the association of hyperprolactinemia with lupus nephritis disease activity. In this cross-sectional study, the analysis was conducted on SLE patients who visited the University Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC) Nephrology Clinic from August 2015 till February 2016. The disease activity was measured using the SLEDAI score, with more than 4 indicating active lupus nephritis. Basal resting prolactin level was analyzed in 43 patients with lupus nephritis, in 27.9% of them had raised serum prolactin. The median of serum prolactin level at 0 minutes was 19.91 ng/mL (IQR: 15.95-22.65 ng/ mL) for active lupus nephritis, which was significantly higher compared to the median of serum prolactin level of 14.34 ng/mL (IQR: 11.09-18.70 ng/mL) for patients in remission (p=0.014). The serum prolactin level positively correlated with SLEDAI (rhos: 0.449, p=0.003) and the UPCI level in lupus nephritis patients (rhos: 0.241, p=0.032). The results were reproduced when the serum prolactin was repeated after 30 minutes. However, the serum prolactin levels at 0 minutes were higher than those taken after 30 minutes (p=0.001). An assessment of serum IL-6 levels found that the active lupus nephritis patients had a higher median level of 65.91 pg/ mL (IQR: 21.96-146.14 pg/mL) compared to the in-remission level of 15.84 pg/mL (IQR: 8.38-92.84 pg/mL), (p=0.039). Further correlation analysis revealed that there was no statistical correlation between the interleukin (IL)-6 levels with serum prolactin, SLEDAI and other lupus nephritis parameters. An ROC curve analysis of serum prolactin at 0 minutes and serum prolactin after 30 minutes and IL-6 levels for prediction of SLE disease activity provided the cutoff value of serum prolactin at 0 minutes, which was 14.63 ng/mL with a sensitivity of 91.7% and specificity of 58.1% and AUC of 0.74 (p=0.015). This study concurred with the previous findings that stated that hyperprolactinemia is prevalent in SLE patients and correlated with clinical disease activity and UPCI level. The baseline of the fasting serum prolactin level was found to be a sensitive biomarker for the evaluation of lupus nephritis disease activity

Dynamics in online social networks

An increasing number of today's social interactions occurs using online social media as communication channels. Some online social networks have become extremely popular in the last decade. They differ among themselves in the character of the service they provide to online users. For instance, Facebook can be seen mainly as a platform for keeping in touch with close friends and relatives, Twitter is used to propagate and receive news, LinkedIn facilitates the maintenance of professional contacts, Flickr gathers amateurs and professionals of photography, etc. Albeit different, all these online platforms share an ingredient that pervades all their applications. There exists an underlying social network that allows their users to keep in touch with each other and helps to engage them in common activities or interactions leading to a better fulfillment of the service's purposes. This is the reason why these platforms share a good number of functionalities, e.g., personal communication channels, broadcasted status updates, easy one-step information sharing, news feeds exposing broadcasted content, etc. As a result, online social networks are an interesting field to study an online social behavior that seems to be generic among the different online services. Since at the bottom of these services lays a network of declared relations and the basic interactions in these platforms tend to be pairwise, a natural methodology for studying these systems is provided by network science. In this chapter we describe some of the results of research studies on the structure, dynamics and social activity in online social networks. We present them in the interdisciplinary context of network science, sociological studies and computer science.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, book chapte