Leisure Reading Behaviour of Young Children in Singapore

Leisure reading is important for personality development and mental growth of children. Reading habits developed during early childhood are likely to continue rest of the life. The main purpose of this study was to investigate leisure reading habits and preferences of young children in Singapore. A questionnaire was used for data collection and 254 children, aged between 6 to 12 years, participated in this study. It was found that reading was among the top five leisure-time activities of the surveyed children. Mostly mothers, followed by fathers, encouraged children to read books. The major reasons for leisure reading were to learn about new things, improve language skills, and to get better grades in tests and examinations. The majority of the children preferred reading print books and the most popular genres were adventure, mysteries, humour, and animal stories. This paper suggests that a multi-dimensional approach is required to promote leisure reading among young children

Utilizing Environment Knowledge for Competitive Advantage

The business environment is increasingly becoming uncertain and complex due to many factors and as a result environmental knowledge is becoming critical for organizations to survive and remain profitable in a highly dynamic, competitive, and volatile business environment. Organizations need to continuously monitor their environment and use this knowledge for making necessary adjustments in their business moves to stay relevant and competitive in the market. The main objective of this study was to investigate the environment scanning initiatives of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore and how this knowledge was processed, shared and utilized. A pre-tested questionnaire was used for collecting data and 46 SMEs, representing different industries, participated in the study. It was found that a majority of the participating companies were facing severe competition and nearly 85% of them considered environmental knowledge critical to their survival and growth. However, only one-half of the companies were regularly capturing, filtering, and disseminating the environment knowledge to their staff, while the remaining companies were undertaking these activities on an ad-hoc basis. This paper offers certain suggestions for systematic capturing and utilizing of environment knowledge by SMEs

A Review of Sustainability Indicators for Small-scale Construction Projects by Private Contractors

Implementation of sustainable construction has become a prerequisite of the global construction sector owing to its cost, time, and waste management. Environmental, social, and economical sustainability indicators are key parameters for attaining sustainability in construction projects. It was inferred from the literature that sustainability in construction projects cannot be achieved without developing these indicators. Prior researchers used numerous statistical and mathematical approaches, such as fuzzy decision-making procedures and structural equation modeling, to develop sustainability in construction projects. Before creating a framework, significant research was conducted to collect important sustainability indicators in construction projects. This literature review examines papers published by reputable publishers, covering the most recent and important investigations. As a result, the current study's objective is to compile the necessary sustainability indicators and create a framework that can be used for small-scale construction projects. The previously established sustainability indicators for construction projects are identified in this present study. However, these indicators were only developed and identified for mega-scale construction projects. This study offers researchers suggestions for framing research for private contractors to achieve sustainability in small-scale construction works by using an integrated strategy to identify the research needs in this field. Sustainability must be incorporated in small-scale construction projects from the beginning of planning and administration, which must be monitored throughout the project

Environment Scanning Strategies of Private Education Centers in Singapore

Environment scanning is an information-rich activity which helps organizations to survive in a competitive business environment. The main objective of this study was to investigate perceptions of private education centres in Singapore of the importance of environment scanning for their business success, strategies used for gathering information about business factors, frequency of information collection, and processing and utilization of the gathered information. Data from 40 private education centres was collected through a questionnaire. It was found that most of the environment scanning activities were conducted regularly by the surveyed centres, except the step of information processing and distribution. Among various business factors, information about customers and immediate competitors were perceived to be more important than other factors. Based on the findings, it is suggested that organizations should use a variety of information sources to have a more comprehensive understanding of their business environments. They should also recruit adequately trained information professionals to systematically conduct environment scanning activities

Information Needs and Seeking Behaviour of Business Students: Paper presented in conference on GenNext Libraries: Emerging Technologies – New Direction for Libraries, 8-10 October 2012, University Brunei Darussalam, Brunei

Singapore Journal of Library & Information Management4114-3

Effectiveness of Malaysian Agricultural Libraries

Evaluation studies can help libraries to find out their strengths and weaknesses and use this knowledge for re-orienting their collections, services and facilities to effectively meet the information needs of their users. The purpose of this study was to explore the information needs and seeking behaviour of agricultural scientists in Malaysia and how effectively their needs are satisfied by their libraries. The study investigated some major factors that were considered important in effectively meeting the information needs of these scientists. Five major agricultural institutions in Malaysia participated in the study. Data was collected through two questionnaires and follow-up interviews with selected respondents and library staff. The user survey questionnaire provided data on information needs and seeking behaviour of respondents, their assessment about the adequacy of library collections, services and facilities, and their overall perceptions about library effectiveness. The library survey questionnaire furnished data from the participating libraries on their manpower, budget, collections, physical resources, library services, and resource sharing activities. The population of the study comprised 1,328 individuals. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to generate random samples. A total of 332 questionnaires were distributed and 234 useable questionnaires were received back with an overall response rate of 70.5 percent. The study found that research and review articles were the most preferred sources for getting up-to-date information.. Interaction . with professional colleagues was also considered important for information exchange. Libraries were more extensively used during two important stages of research, i.e., proposal development and report writing. Although a majority of the respondents personally visited their library they, however, sent their junior researchers andlor para-professionals for getting photocopies of articles, checking out books or getting information from the sources already known to them. The use of IT-based information sources and facilities was very low, although a majority of the respondents possessed reasonably good computing skills. Among the Internet applications, e-mail was the most popular while other Internet-based sources and facilities were used infrequently. A positive relationship was found between perceptions about library effectiveness and assessment of participants of the adequacy of library collections, equipment and physical resources. Other factors having a positive impact on the perception about library effectiveness were: involvement in the selection of library materials; notification of current materials; adequate promotion; convenient library location; staff attitude; and participation in user education programmes. The level of resource sharing among Malaysian libraries was quite high as nearly 74 percent of the interlibrary loan and document delivery requests of the participating libraries were met locally. However, only a minimal resource sharing was found among the participating libraries and libraries in the ASEAN countries. Although the participating libraries agreed in principle to participate in a resource sharing scheme, they felt that it should be the prerogative of the participating library to decide its level of co-operation and with which library to share its resources. It means that these libraries were in favour of a "loose" library co-operation network. A big difference was found between the number of document delivery requests made by these libraries to international sources and the number of such requests received by them from overseas, confirming one-way flow of information. Most of the document delivery requests were made to the BLDSC. Malaysian agricultural scientists, as compared to scientists in developed countries, made considerably less number of interlibrary loan and document delivery requests. A positive relationship was found between the availability of funds in research projects for literature procurement and the number of document delivery requests made. The study concludes that agricultural libraries in Malaysia were to some extent meeting the information needs of their scientists, although a disparity among these libraries was quite evident. However, the financial crisis of 1997 has severely affected the performance of these libraries. Library collections, services and facilities considered reasonable at the time of this study may quickly become inadequate due to the lack of funds to sustain them. Therefore, agricultural libraries in Malaysia need to develop appropriate strategies for surviving in the rapidly changing environment. Major recommendations of the study are: development of a formal resource sharing scheme for agricultural libraries in Malaysia, putting holdings information of these libraries on the Internet. to facilitate resource .. sharing, making subscriptions. -to full-text electronic journals, more library co-operation among ASEAN countries, and the conduct of intensive user education programmes

Correlation between correctly sized uncuffed endotracheal tube and ultrasonographically determined subglottic diameter in pediatric population

Background: The size of the airway varies greatly in pediatric patients, making it difficult to predict an appropriate size Endotracheal tube (ETT) for securing the airway. Several formulae are used to predict approximate ETT size. With the wider availability of ultrasonography (USG), many clinicians have suggested it as a useful tool for airway management and have used USG to measure tracheal dimensions in adults and children. Aims and Objectives: The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of USG for the selection of correct sized uncuffed ETT in pediatric patients and the secondary aim was to correlate the age-based formula with ultrasound measured subglottic diameter for predicting the size of ETT. Materials and Methods: A total of 64 patients of either gender in the age group of 2–6 years were enrolled in the study. Standard anesthetic induction was done and transverse subglottic diameter was measured using USG. The minimal transverse subglottic diameter was measured and noted and the patient was intubated with the tube size as determined by modified Cole’s age-based formula. Results: Out of 64 patients, 33 were male and 31 female. Average age was 3.9 (±1.47) years, 42.2% belonged to the age group of (2–3) years, average weight of the patients was 20.3 (±10.45) kg. The mean ETT outer diameters (OD) based on age-based formula was 6.81 mm compared to 6.91 mm and 6.78 mm by USG based and actual ETT OD, respectively. Both the age based ETT OD and USG-based ETT OD showed good correlation with actual ETT OD used with r-value of 0.891 and 0.876, respectively. Conclusion: Although USG is a non-invasive, cost-effective, and reproducible technique its routine use for estimating ETT size in pediatric patients could not be justified over age-based formula as both of them have comparable results (statistically insignificant). The success rate of age-based formula and USG in precisely predicting ETT outer diameter is comparable with the size of actual ETT outer diameter (78% vs. 75%, P=0.86)

Antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of different solvent fractions from Murraya koenigii shoots: HPLC quantification And molecular docking of identified phenolics with anti-apoptotic proteins

ABSTRACT. Murraya koenigii is known for its health benefits against constipation, diarrhea, bacterial infections, wounds and skin related diseases. Aim of this project is to determine cytotoxic aptitude of antioxidant compounds present in M. koenigii. The fractionation of M. koenigii shoots methanol extract was carried out with different solvents followed by determination of total phenolic content, radical scavenging potential along with phenolic profile. M. koenigii shoot fractions were analyzed for their cytotoxic potential by MTT assay besides evaluating molecular interactions between identified phenolics with Bcl-2, Bcl-xl and MCL-1. The results revealed that butanol fraction contains maximum amount of quercetin, 4-hydroxy-3-methoxy benzoic acid and trans-4-hydroxy-3-methoxy cinnamic acid. Ferulic acid is abundant in water fraction whereas n-hexane fractions contain sinapic and vanillic acids. The ethyl acetate fraction possess the highest level of phenolics as well as radical scavenging potential. HPLC results show that 9 organic acids are present in ethyl acetate and butanol fractions. The highest cytotoxic activity was exhibited by n-hexane and ethyl acetate fractions. Molecular docking studies supports that ethyl acetate and n-hexane fractions are the major sources of antioxidant and cytotoxic compounds. Also, molecular interactions exist between identified phenolics from plant shoots fractions with anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2, Bcl-xl and MCL-1.   KEY WORDS: Morraya koenigii, Fractionation, Antioxidant, Cytotoxic, Molecular docking Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2022, 36(3), 651-666.                                                               DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v36i3.14                                                     &nbsp