The association of shift work and coronary heart disease risk factors among male factory workers in Kota Bharu, Kelantan

Shift work is one of the work hour systems in which a relay of employees extends the period of production beyond the conventional 8-hour working day. It has been found to be associated with various health problems and there is concern that shift workers are at higher risk to develop risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD). The study was undertaken to examine relationships between shift work and CHD risk factors, namely hypertension, dyslipidaemia (either hypercholesterolaemia, hyper-low density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia, hypo-high density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia or hypertriglyceridaemia), high body mass index (BMI), hyperglycemia and physical inactivity among male factory workers in a factory in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. METHODS: This study was a contrived cross-sectional study of 76 shift and 72 day workers from one ofthe factories in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Data was collected through a questionnaire on psychosocial and life-style factors, anthropometric and blood pressure measurement, fasting blood sugar and fasting lipid proJiles analyses. RESULTS: The prevalence of hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia and high body mass index (BMO were significantly higher among shift workers compared to day workers. There was no difference in the prevalence of hyperg[ycemia, hypo-high-density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia, hyper-high-density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia and physical inactivity. When the shiji workers were compared with the day workers, the aajusted odds ratio (OR) for hypertension, high BMI andphysical inactivity were 9.1 (95% CI 1.4-56.8), 2.9 (95% CI 1.3-6.1) and 7.7 (95% CI 2.1-27.5) respectively. There was neither association of shift work with dyslipidaemia, nor with hyperglycemia. CONCLUSIONS: There were positive association between shiji work and hypertension, high BMI andphysical inactivity which denotes a higher risk of CHD risk factors among shift workers compared to day workers

Study of noise robustness of First Formant Bandwidth (F1BW) method

The performance of speech recognition application under adverse noisy condition often becomes the topic of researchers regardless of the language used. Applications that use vowel phonemes require high degree of Standard Malay vowel recognition capability.In Malaysia, researches in vowel recognition is still lacking especially in the usage of Malay vowels, independent speaker systems, recognition robustness and algorithm speed and accuracy. This paper presents a noise robustness study on an improved vowel feature extraction method called First Formant Bandwidth (F1BW) on three classifiers of Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR), K-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA).Results show that LDA performs best in overall vowel classification compared to MLR and KNN in terms of robustness capability

Ankle fractures: the operative outcome

Ankle fractures are commonly seen in orthopaedic practice. This retrospective study of patients with ankle fractures who underwent surgical treatment in our institution from January 2000 to December 2003 was undertaken to analyze the common causes and patterns of ankle fractures; and the functional outcome of operative treatment for these fractures. Eighty patients were identified and reviewed. There were 65 male (81.3%) and 15 female patients (18.7%) with age ranging from 13 to 71 years old (mean, 32.3y). Common causes of ankle fractures were trauma (especially motor vehicle accidents), sports injuries and the osteoporotic bones in the elderly. Weber C (64.0%) was the most common pattern of fracture at presentation. The most common operative treatment for ankle fractures was open reduction and internal fixation (73 patients, 91.2%). Excellent and good outcomes were achieved in 93.8% of cases when measured using the Olerud and Molander scoring system for foot and ankle. In conclusion, operative treatment for ankle fractures restores sufficient stability and allowed mobility of the ankle joint

Variation in the solubilization of crude protein in wheat straw by different white-rot fungi

Besides their unique ability to depolymerize cell wall components, white-rot fungi are known to assimilate nitrogenous compounds from substrates. This modification may change protein solubility and fermentation in the rumen. To investigate this, the crude protein (CP) in fungal treated wheat straw (3 fungal species, 2 strains each) was fractioned according to the Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System (CNCPS) and assessed for in vitro protein fermentation using a modified gas production technique (IVGPN). Results showed that fungi increased fraction A (instantaneously soluble CP; ∼2.6 times) and B1 (rapidly degradable; ∼1.2 times); and decreased the slowly degradable fraction B3 (∼41.6%) and unavailable fraction C (∼48.3%). The IVGPN of straw treated with Ceriporiopsis subvermispora strains were not different to the control, but increased by 30.2 to 47.1% in Pleurotus eryngii and Lentinula edodes strains. The IVGPN was significantly (P <  0.01) correlated to all fractions of CP, except fraction B1 and B2 (intermediately degradable). All fungi also increased the arginine (∼56%) and lysine (∼15%) contents. This study shows the importance of assessing the protein solubilization by different fungal strains, which can uncover unique mechanisms in the cell wall depolymerization

Development of palm biomass briquettes with polyethylene plastic waste addition

High global energy demand scenario has driven towards transformation from sole dependence on fossil fuels to utilization of inexhaustible renewable energy sources such as hydro, biomass, solar and wind. Renewable energy sources are abundant in Malaysia, especially palm biomass residues that are produced during the oil extraction process of fresh fruit bunch. Therefore, it is inevitable to harness these bioenergy sources, in order to prevent waste accumulation at adjacent to palm mills. Briquetting of palm biomass such as empty fruit bunch (EFB) with polyethylene (PE) plastics waste addition is expected not only could maximize the utilization of energy resources, but also could become as a potential solution for residue and municipal plastics waste disposal. In the present study, the physical and combustion properties of palm biomass briquettes that contain novel mixture of pulverized EFB and PE plastics waste were investigated experimentally. The briquettes were produced with different mixing ratio of EFB and PE plastics (weight ratios of 95:5, 90:10 and 85:15), under various heating temperatures (130-190°C) and at constant compaction pressure of 7 MPa. Based on the results, it can be said that heating temperature plays a significant role in affecting physical properties such as relaxed density and compressive strength. The values of relaxed density and compressive strength are within the range of 1100 to 1300 kg/m3 and 0.8 to 1.2 MPa, respectively. Meanwhile, mixing ratio does affect relaxed density and gross calorific value. All values of gross calorific (17900 to 21000 kJ/kg) and moisture content (7% to 9%) are found to fulfill the requirement for commercialization as stated by DIN51731 (gross calorific value>17500 kJ/kg and moisture content<10%). Even though the values of ash content (3% to 4%) exceed the limitation as stated by the standard (<0.7%), it is still considered very competitive if compared to the commonly used local briquette that contains mesocarp fibre and shell (5.8%). Finally, it can be concluded that the best quality of briquette can be achieved when highest composition of PE plastics (weight percentage of 15%) is used and the briquetting process is performed at the highest temperature (190℃)

Directional felling within selective management system of Peninsular Malaysia: comparison between current and extended techniques

Directional felling has been implemented in Peninsular Malaysia as part of the Selective Management System (SMS) to obtain optimum yield from the forest resources while reducing damage to the environment and residual trees. Some questions regarding its effectiveness have been questioned a few times, resulting in a joint research project at Ulu Jelai Forest Reserve, Pahang, Malaysia to compare between the current directional felling technique and the new (extended) techniques, in terms of accuracy of tree felling, volume of felling logs, expected damage on residual trees, and time taken for tree felling. For this study, 38 trees were felled with the current and extended techniques. By using the extended technique, 91.3% of the trees were felled within the 0°-5° range, and 100% within the 0°-10° range, compared to 28.01% (within the 0°-5° range) using the current technique. The extended technique also recorded higher volume recovery (14% higher) and lower damage on the residual trees by almost 50%. However, the extended technique took longer time, i.e. 4.56 minutes per tree, as compared to 2.50 minutes. The main contributor to the difference is the presence of gauge cut in the extended technique. Generally, the studies suggest that the extended technique is preferred as it is safer to the feller and surrounding people, while reducing the collateral damage on the harvested trees, as well as the residual trees

Improved Malay vowel feature extraction method based on first and second formants

There are many speech recognition applications that use vowels phonemes.Among them are speech therapy systems that improve utterances of word pronunciation especially to children.There are also systems that teach hearing impaired person to speak properly by pronouncing words with a good degree of intelligibility.All of these systems require high degree of vowel recognition capability.This paper presents a new method of Malay vowel feature extraction based on formant and spectrum envelope called First Formant Bandwidth (F1BW).It is an effort to increase Malay vowel recognition capability by using a new speech database that consist of words uttered by Malaysian speakers from the three major races, Malay, Chinese and Indians.Based on single frame analysis, F1BW performs better than MFCC by more than 9% based on four classifiers of Levenberg-Marquart trained Neural Network, K-Nearest Neighbours, Multinomial Logistic Regression and Linear Discriminant Analysis

Performance evaluation of VANET QoS in presence of timing attack and sinkhole attack using OMNeT++

The growth in research advancement of vehicular Adhoc Network (VANET) has seen a significant rise in the security attack.In this paper we gives the simulation for quantitative investigate of VANET in presence of Timing attack and Sinkhole attack. We described the performance metrics and discover the effect and harm caused by Timing attack and Sinkhole attack, which directly affect the network Quality of Service (QoS).Our assessment results shows that the impact on VANET under Timing attack and Sinkhole attack varies potentially depending on number of vehicles, number of attacker vehicles.The impact of a Timing attack and Sinkhole attack increased significantly by increasing the number of attacker vehicles in several of the situations. While the number of attacks impact level continually effect on network performance with varying the number of vehicles. It has been perceived that in presence of Timing attack delay is increased approximately 80%. On the other hand, in presence of Sinkhole attack delay is increased approximately 72%. It implied that these attacks are harmful for network life and stand against safety application in VANET

Mechanical properties of concrete containing untreated palm oil fuel ash and egg shell powder

This study aims to use two (2) waste products, namely Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) and Egg Shell Powder (ESP) as cement replacement in concrete. This is because the properties of POFA and ESP are similar to the properties of cement. The objective of this study is to determine the mechanical properties (compressive strength and tensile strength) of concrete containing POFA and ESP as cement replacement. With both properties known, the optimum percentage of POFA and ESP as cement replacement can then be determined. The percentage of replacement of POFA was fixed at 20%, however the percentages of ESP varied from 0 to 20%. Six 100 � 100 � 100 mm cubes and six 100 � 200 mm cylinders were prepared for each variation of percentages. The cubes and cylinders were tested for compressive and tensile strength after 7 and 28 days of water curing. Generally, as the percentages of ESP increased, the workability, compressive strength and tensile strength of the concrete sample decreased. In conclusion, the combination of POFA and ESP as cement replacement in concrete is only able to achieved 76% of targeted strength