Factors associated with parenting practices among preschoolers' parents in Ampang and Serdang, Selangor, 2016

Parenting practices is an important factor that determines child's behaviour. In the past 40 years, research proves that child’s development are affected by parenting. Hence, it is also important to know that there are factors that are associated with the parenting practice because that factors can determine whether the parenting being used is good or bad. To determine the factors (parents’ attitude, parental knowledge) associated with parenting practices among preschoolers' parents in Ampang and Serdang, Selangor. This was a cross-sectional study. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 252 preschoolers’ parents from 14 Tabika KEMAS in Ampang and Serdang, Selangor. The data collected were analysed by using SPSS version 21.0. Parental knowledge (source) and parents’ attitude (overprotective, interest in knowledge) were the most common factors affecting parenting practices of preschoolers' parents from 14 Tabika KEMAS in Ampang and Serdang, Selangor. Overall, parents play an important role in developing skills of good parenting practices to be applied on their children later on

Simultaneous microbeam IBA and beam-induced luminescence analysis of strained doped silica fibre radiation dosimeters

We demonstrate that the simultaneous combination of ion beam analysis (IBA) and ion beam induced luminescence (IL) can reveal valuable information concerning the performance of strained doped silica fibre thermoluminescence microdosimeters. The micron scale spatial resolution and low detection limits of IBA allow the lateral distribution of dopant elements to be mapped and then correlated with the distribution of prompt radioluminescence. Measurement of the decay of the IL signal with dose provide information concerning the saturation of the subsequent TL signal at high doses. MeV ion beams can deposit relatively high energy in localized, well-quantified small volumes and so this method is valuable for studying high dose effects in TL dosimeters. We describe a simple modification of the target chamber microscope which enables sensitive low background light detection in two wavelength bands and present preliminary results from three types of germanium doped silica fibre dosimeter

Rearward visibility assessment and a proposed performance scoring for ASEAN NCAP

Asia has the highest number of registered motorcycles globally and the recent data has shown that motorcycles fatalities has been the major accident and death cases in ASEAN Region. One of the major concerns is the visibility of motorcycles to other vehicles on the road. Thus, in this project, ECE R46 and FMVSS regulations have been referred as the base guidelines to establish a novel test protocols for vehicles rearward visibility assessment. Sixteen cars have been benchmarked and analysed in term of their rear-view mirror (Class I) and external mirror (Class III) performance. Motorcycles visibility to the vehicles’ Class I and Class III mirrors also been assessed by converting the measured data into number of motorcycles based on its width. A proposed performance scoring system for ASEAN NCAP has been developed based on that to address the Motorcycle Safety pillar

Study of palm acid oil (PAO) from sludge palm oil mill effluent (POME) as goat’s feed

This study was conducted to determine the base dietary of animal feed for goat by utilizing solid waste and to investigate the effectiveness of different dietary of solid waste effect on growth performance of goats. Palm Acid Oil (PAO), Napier grass, coconut waste and water lettuce were used as the sample to produce animal feed for goats. POME is produced during palm oil mill process [1]. PAO is produced during the extracted process of POME. The solid waste produced has caused the pollution problem to the environment. The solid waste undergoes composting method to produce animal feed which is useful to the growth of goat. All these samples were collected and mixed by following the guideline book of title Nutrient Composition of Malaysian Feed Materials and Guides to Feeding of Cattle and Goats by Department of Veterinary Services Ministry of Agriculture and Argo-based Industry Malaysia [2]. Four adult does with an age of 6 months and weighting 23.30 ± 2.47 kg were used then fed with the dietary treatments for 14 days for adaptation and continued until the end of the study, which lasted for 120 days. The 3 indicators to be analysed were the growth performance and body weight gain (BWG) of goats, also the nutrient requirement by goats. In this study, 3 dietary treatments were used (D1, D2, D3) to be compared with control diet (CD). Each diet contains different nutrient and composition. All these samples have nutrient needed by the goat and have a big potential to produce an animal feed. Results showed that goat that takes D1 has the highest growth performance and body weight gain (BW)

Application of Mahalanobis-Taguchi system in Rainfall Distribution

The rainfall time series is often nonlinear and multi-time scale because of hydrology, meteorological, and human activity. Weather stations gather information on a diverse set of parameters on order to monitor and analyses patterns of rainfall. Nevertheless, not all parameters are created equal in terms of its significance or effectiveness in carrying out classification and optimization actions. The objective is to classify rainfall occurrences by the RT method and optimize the parameter selection process by the T method using Mahalanobis-Taguchi system (MTS). The data was collected using Vantage Pro2 weather station at UMPSA Gambang campus and it consists of 16 various parameters. As a results, RT method can classify the data samples in terms of MD for the months of June, October and December by utilizing the, while simultaneously the number of parameters is reduced to only those that substantially contribute to the classification. This brings the total number of parameters decrease from 16 to 8 when compared to the T method. So, this research methods offer a simplified and effective way for analyzing rainfall patterns and optimizing the data gathering processes at weather stations

Mitragynine Attenuates Withdrawal Syndrome in Morphine-Withdrawn Zebrafish

A major obstacle in treating drug addiction is the severity of opiate withdrawal syndrome, which can lead to unwanted relapse. Mitragynine is the major alkaloid compound found in leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, a plant widely used by opiate addicts to mitigate the harshness of drug withdrawal. A series of experiments was conducted to investigate the effect of mitragynine on anxiety behavior, cortisol level and expression of stress pathway related genes in zebrafish undergoing morphine withdrawal phase. Adult zebrafish were subjected to two weeks chronic morphine exposure at 1.5 mg/L, followed by withdrawal for 24 hours prior to tests. Using the novel tank diving tests, we first showed that morphine-withdrawn zebrafish display anxiety-related swimming behaviors such as decreased exploratory behavior and increased erratic movement. Morphine withdrawal also elevated whole-body cortisol levels, which confirms the phenotypic stress-like behaviors. Exposing morphine-withdrawn fish to mitragynine however attenuates majority of the stress-related swimming behaviors and concomitantly lower whole-body cortisol level. Using real-time PCR gene expression analysis, we also showed that mitragynine reduces the mRNA expression of corticotropin releasing factor receptors and prodynorphin in zebrafish brain during morphine withdrawal phase, revealing for the first time a possible link between mitragynine's ability to attenuate anxiety during opiate withdrawal with the stress-related corticotropin pathway

What information and the extent of information research participants need in informed consent forms: a multi-country survey

Background: The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms (ICFs) is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in biomedical research. Methods: This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important). Results: Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 (85.1%) were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be \u27moderately important\u27 to \u27very important\u27 for their decision making (mean score, ranging from 3.58 to 4.47). Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF (mean score = 4.47, 4.47, and 4.45, respectively). Conclusions: Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks