Social Media, Online Shopping Activities and Perceived Risks in Malaysia

The Internet shopping experience offers dissimilar ways of off-online communications with communication differences tools that need a better decision of their effect on customer communications. Social networking sites is also fast becoming the platform for interaction, attracting new potential customers and has become the trend for companies to engage with their consumers online. The main objective of this research is to examine Malaysia customer’s risk perception toward online shopping via social media website. Findings suggest that respondents from all age groups have generally accepted the Internet to be used for social networking, while older groups use the Internet for information search and online shopping. The key areas of risk for not using Internet shopping is related to product quality, scamming, and poor customer service; in which the female groups appeared to be more concerned about the risk involved. Higher income groups are more concerned with the risks on product quality suggesting they expect value for their money for the products. Findings further shows that older consumer groups require some form of education in technology, which is preventing them from fully exploring the Internet and shopping potentials. The area of concern for both genders, is information security, such as protecting private information, security of the website, comfort level with the site, information completeness and trust of the vendor. Female groups were found to have higher tendency of fear of the risk of breaching information, suggesting that they highly value their privacy and secrecy

Fruits and vegetables preference among university students towards developing healthy food innovation products

No AbstractKeywords: fruits; vegetables; preference; university student

Integrated Personality Profiling Framework Using Traits and Factors Theory for Malaysian HLI Enrolment: A New Approach

Personality profiling is importantespecially in education and human resourcemanagement. Inability to identify individuals’personality may cause misunderstanding ofones potential; and further more, he/she mightfail to recognize his/her own career or academicdirection. This study aimed to develop anintegrated personality framework; using Traitand Factor Theory of Occupational Choice. Thecompleted framework was used as the coreconcept of integrated profiling instrument, namedas Integrated Personality Profiling (i-PRO).The main beneficiary of the completed (i-PRO)will be students, academics and non-academicpersonnel. The sample for this initial study was380 students from one Higher Learning Institution(HLI) in Malaysia. The sampling method usedwas random sampling. The study was done toexplore the Holland’s 3-code interest traits amongengineering students of the said HLI. One of thedeveloped domain used in this initial study wascareer interest domain. The Holland’s 3-codetypologies for Higher Learning Institution (HLI)respondents are Investigative, Social and Realistic(I, S, R)

Chronic neuropsychiatric sequelae of SARS‐CoV‐2: Protocol and methods from the Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium

Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused >3.5 million deaths worldwide and affected >160 million people. At least twice as many have been infected but remained asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. COVID-19 includes central nervous system manifestations mediated by inflammation and cerebrovascular, anoxic, and/or viral neurotoxicity mechanisms. More than one third of patients with COVID-19 develop neurologic problems during the acute phase of the illness, including loss of sense of smell or taste, seizures, and stroke. Damage or functional changes to the brain may result in chronic sequelae. The risk of incident cognitive and neuropsychiatric complications appears independent from the severity of the original pulmonary illness. It behooves the scientific and medical community to attempt to understand the molecular and/or systemic factors linking COVID-19 to neurologic illness, both short and long term. Methods This article describes what is known so far in terms of links among COVID-19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. We focus on risk factors and possible molecular, inflammatory, and viral mechanisms underlying neurological injury. We also provide a comprehensive description of the Alzheimer's Association Consortium on Chronic Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (CNS SC2) harmonized methodology to address these questions using a worldwide network of researchers and institutions. Results Successful harmonization of designs and methods was achieved through a consensus process initially fragmented by specific interest groups (epidemiology, clinical assessments, cognitive evaluation, biomarkers, and neuroimaging). Conclusions from subcommittees were presented to the whole group and discussed extensively. Presently data collection is ongoing at 19 sites in 12 countries representing Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Discussion The Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium harmonized methodology is proposed as a model to study long-term neurocognitive sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Effect of Dental Restorative Material Type and Shade on Characteristics of Two-Layer Dental Composite Systems

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of shade and material type and shape in dental polymer composites on the hardness and shrinkage stress of bulk and two-layered restoration systems. For this purpose, some bulk and layered specimens from three different shades of dental materials were prepared and light-cured. The experiments were carried out on three types of materials: conventional restorative composite, nanohybrid composite and nanocomposite. Micro-indentation experiment was performed on the bulk and also on each layer of layered restoration specimens using a Vicker's indenter. The interface between the two layers was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results revealed significant differences between the values of hardness for different shades in the conventional composite and also in the nanohybrid composite. However, no statistically significant difference was observed between the hardness values for different shades in the nanocomposite samples. The layered restoration specimens of different restorative materials exhibited lower hardness values with respect to their bulk specimens. The reduction in the hardness value of the layered conventional composite samples was higher than those of the nanocomposite and nanohybrid composite specimens indicating more shrinkage stresses generated in the conventional composite restorations. According to the SEM images, a gap was observed between the two layers in the layered restorations

Functionalized Three-Dimensional Carbon Microarrays for Cancer Biomarker Detection

A label-free detection strategy for the detection of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF-BB) oncoprotein detection using signaling aptamer/protein binding complex is reported. The 3D carbon microarrays detection platform was fabricated by pyrolyzing patterned photoresist and surface functionalized using direct-amination technique. The detection strategy is based on the release of TOTO intercalating dye from the target binding aptamer's stem structure when it captures PDGF. The sensor showed near linear relationship between the relative fluorescence difference and protein concentration with a very good detection limit of 5 pmol. This detection strategy is promising for the potential detection of different cancer biomarkers and proteins.</jats:p