Factors Associated With Body Weight Status of Iranian Postgraduate Students in University of Putra Malaysia

Background: Good nutrition, a balanced diet and regular physical activity are foundations of good health. Research has found that dietary patterns change dramatically following the arrival of students in a foreign country. However, nutritional status of Iranian students studying oversea has never been investigated. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine factors associated with body weight status of Iranian postgraduate students in Universiti of Putra Malaysia (UPM). Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the body weight status of 210 Iranian postgraduate students aged between 22 and 55 years in University of Putra Malaysia. The associations between body weight status and socio demographics factors and also lifestyle factors (smoking and physical activity) were assessed. Anthropometric factors (height, weight, BMI and waist and hip circumferences) were measured. Chi-square, Spearman Rho and Pearson tests were used for data analysis. Results: From a total of 210 postgraduate students 110 were females, and 100 males. No significant correlation was observed between smoking and BMI (P = 0.4). However, statistically significant correlations were observed between gender (P = 0.007), physical activity (P = 0.02), using protein (P = 0.005), carbohydrate (P = 0.002), fat (P = 0.001), fiber (P = 0.003), vitamin C (P = 0.04), calcium (P = 0.005), waist circumference (P = 0.02), hip circumference (P = 0.001), Waist to Hip Ratio (P = 0.002), and BMI. Conclusions: The nutritional behavior of university students was poor. Therefore, it is essential to encourage young people, including university students to enrich their diets with milk, beans, fruit, and vegetables to decrease the risks of nutrition related disorders

Anatomical variations of median nerve formation, distribution and possible communication with other nerves in preserved human cadavers

Formation, distribution and possible communication of the median nerve are essential to know in treatment and surgeries of various conditions of injuries e.g. repair or reconstruction of the median nerve post traumatic accident. In the present study, 44 upper limbs were dissected. Root forming the median nerve, the median nerve in relation with the axillary artery and communication of the median nerve with other nerves were noted

A review on plants and biomass wastes as organic green corrosion inhibitors for mild steel in acidic environment

Acid corrosion is a problem pertaining to corrosion that involves an acid solution. It is important to treat metal to preserve its integrity. Thus, acids are utilized to clean and treat metal surfaces. In return, this may lead to over‐etching and metal degradation. Corrosion inhibitors were introduced as a solution for the issue. However, there are some problems associated with the usage of conventional corrosion inhibitors. Traces of nitrites and chromates that are present in the inhibi-tors may lead to serious health and environmental issues. As a solution, organic green corrosion inhibitors have been studied to replace the conventional corrosion inhibitors. These inhibitor molecules form a protective layer on top of the metal surface to suppress metal dissolution when added to the acid solution. This process prevents direct contact between the metal surfaces and the acid environment. This study explores the usage of natural resources and biomass wastes as the basis for organic green corrosion inhibitors. This study also provides some suggestions for new biomass wastes that can be studied as new organic corrosion inhibitors, and it is aimed at opening the per-spective of researchers on exploring new organic inhibitors by using natural resources and biomass wastes

Determination of critical environmental, social, infrastructure, and economic indicators as evaluation checklist for pre-project abandonment plan assessment in-line with sustainable development goal plan

The increasing number of project abandonment because of the Novel Coronavirus pandemic 2019 (Covid-19) calls for better management of abandonment projects. The outbreak of Covid-19 has affected the environment, economy, and society aspects globally. In a developed country like Malaysia, the requirement to submit an abandonment plan is stipulated under the Environmental Guidelines in Malaysia (EGIM) 2016. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a Sustainable Pre-Project Abandonment Plan Assessment Checklist in Malaysia that is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2030 aspirations. This new Sustainable Pre-Project Abandonment Plan Assessment Checklist in Malaysia is comprehensively structured; is expected to minimise the negative impact of the abandonment process towards the environment, socio-economy, and efficient management of infrastructure; and complies with the related legislation in Malaysia. In this study, data was collected and analysed using NVivo12. It consisted of findings from documents reviewed such as legislations, journals, and books. From the NVivo12 analysis, the results showed 28 critical indicators for abandonment plan assessment and related legislation that synchronises with SDG 2030 is required to develop the Proposed Sustainable Pre-Project Abandonment Plan Assessment Checklist in Malaysia

Pattern classifier of chemical compounds in different qualities of agarwood oil parameter using scale conjugate gradient algorithm in MLP

This paper presents the modelling of agarwood oil (AO) significant compounds by different qualities using Scaled Conjugate Gradient (SCG) algorithm. This technique involved of data collection from Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) for compound extraction. The development of Multilayer perceptron (MLP) is used to discriminate the qualities of AO chemical compounds to the high and low quality. The input and output data was transferred to the MATLAB version R2013a for extended analysis. The input is the abundances of significant compounds (%) and the output is the oil quality either high or low. This involved of identification, selection and optimization of a MLP as classifiers to identify and classify the agarwood oil quality. The result showed that MLP as pattern classifier is successful classify agarwood oil quality using SCG algorithm with 100% accuracy. This finding is important in agarwood oil area especially in grading system

Naturally occurring hepatitis B virus surface antigen mutant variants in Malaysian blood donors and vaccinees

Hepatitis B virus surface mutants are of enormous importance because they are capable of escaping detection by serology and can infect both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, thus putting the whole population at risk. This study aimed to detect and characterise hepatitis B-escaped mutants among blood donors and vaccinees. One thousand serum samples were collected for this study from blood donors and vaccinees. Hepatitis B surface antigen, antibodies and core antibodies were tested using a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. DNA detection was performed via nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the S gene was sequenced and analysed using bioinformatics. Of the 1,000 samples that were screened, 5.5 % (55/1,000) were found to be HBsAg-negative and anti-HBc- and HBV DNA-positive. All 55 isolates were found to belong to genotype B. Several mutations were found across all the sequences from synonymous and non-synonymous mutations, with the most nucleotide mutations occurring at position 342, where adenine was replaced by guanine, and cytosine at position 46 was replaced by adenine in 96.4 % and 98 % of the isolates, respectively. Mutation at position 16 of the amino acid sequence was found to be common to all the Malaysian isolates, with 85.7 % of the mutations occurring outside the major hydrophilic region. This study revealed a prevalence of 5.5 % for hepatitis B-escaped mutations among blood donors and vaccinated undergraduates, with the most common mutation being found at position 16, where glutamine was substituted with lysine

Physico-mechanical characteristics of tropical granite boulders in weathered heterogeneous zones for geotechnical design purposes

The presence of isolated or clustered granite boulders in tropical weathered masses commonly formed a very thick heterogeneous zone in weathering Zone 3 to 5. The boulders with various characteristics are always misinterpreted during the geotechnical design process due to being poorly understood and studied. This study aims to determine the physico-mechanical characteristics of boulders in different weathering zones for design purposes. The parameters studied include boulder types, porosity, density, durability, point load and uniaxial compressive strength. Results revealed boulders in weathering Zone 3, 4 and 5 can be classified into Type A, B and C, respectively. These boulders have significant differences in physical and mechanical properties. The boulders in Zone 4 and 5 consists of corestone, ringlets and saprolites and the boulders in Zone 3 have no ringlets. Corestones have the highest durability, point load and compressibility strength with a median of 94.5%, 7.80 MPa and 187.07 MPa, respectively. The ringlets possess the highest porosity range of 23.3%–31.3% compared with saprolite. Saprolite in Zone 5 has the lowest durability, point load and compressive strength with respectively less than 7%, 0.22 MPa and 1 MPa. The various characteristics of the boulders in different weathering zones could influence the geotechnical design model

Prevalence of PALB2 Mutations in Breast Cancer Patients in Multi-Ethnic Asian Population in Malaysia and Singapore

10.1371/journal.pone.0073638PLoS ONE88-POLN

Gene-Environment Interactions Relevant to Estrogen and Risk of Breast Cancer: Can Gene-Environment Interactions Be Detected Only among Candidate SNPs from Genome-Wide Association Studies?

In this study we aim to examine gene–environment interactions (GxEs) between genes involved with estrogen metabolism and environmental factors related to estrogen exposure. GxE analyses were conducted with 1970 Korean breast cancer cases and 2052 controls in the case-control study, the Seoul Breast Cancer Study (SEBCS). A total of 11,555 SNPs from the 137 candidate genes were included in the GxE analyses with eight established environmental factors. A replication test was conducted by using an independent population from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC), with 62,485 Europeans and 9047 Asians. The GxE tests were performed by using two-step methods in GxEScan software. Two interactions were found in the SEBCS. The first interaction was shown between rs13035764 of NCOA1 and age at menarche in the GE|2df model (p-2df = 1.2 × 10−3). The age at menarche before 14 years old was associated with the high risk of breast cancer, and the risk was higher when subjects had homozygous minor allele G. The second GxE was shown between rs851998 near ESR1 and height in the GE|2df model (p-2df = 1.1 × 10−4). Height taller than 160 cm was associated with a high risk of breast cancer, and the risk increased when the minor allele was added. The findings were not replicated in the BCAC. These results would suggest specificity in Koreans for breast cancer risk