Practices of insurance operators in Malaysia: conventional vs. unconventional life insurance.

Risk is part and parcel of our daily life and we have been trying to find out the way to protect ourselves in the case of misfortune. That is the reason why insurance came to play an important role in our life. Unfortunately, insurance seems to be not fully complied with unconventional (Islamic) aspect and hence, it has been modified to ensure unconventional requirements. However, to our knowledge, no research has been done to what extent these two differ and hence, the objective of this research is to examine the current practices of conventional and unconventional life insurance practices in Malaysia. Interviews and the questionnaires have been conducted and the findings show that there are no significant differences in practices except for product development and allocation of premium contribution

Efficacy of Avicennia marina (Forsk.) Vierh. leaves extracts against some atmospheric fungi

Crude ethanolic extract of Avicennia marina leaves was tested against seven allergenic fungi viz., Alternaria alternata, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium herbarum, Penicillium notatum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae using five different solvents: dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO), distilled water (DW), chloroform, ethanol and acetone at 2000, 4000 and 6000 ppm doses. Dose dependent tendency in the increase or decrease in the growth of fungi was observed. Two synthetic drugs miconazole and amphotericin-B were used as positive control. Miconazole was 100% effective against A. alternata, C. herbatum, P. notatum and S. cerevisiae with the concentrations of 95.00 ± 1.62, 78.00 ± 4.99, 100.00 ± 0.69 and 110.00 ± 2.33 (μg/ml of SDA medium), respectively. Amphotericin-B completely controlled the growth of A. flavus, A. fumigatus and A. niger in the concentration of 24.00 ± 17.00, 30.00 ± 15.66 and 18.00 ± 18.34 (μg/ml of SDA medium), respectively. Distilled water and DMSO were considered to be the most effective solvents preventing 83.00 ± 4.73% growth of A. niger, 80.33 ± 5.60% A. flavus, 78.58 ± 3.18% A. alternata, 72.91 ± 7.96% P. notatum, 65.25 ± 3.55% C. herbarum, 63.25 ± 4.52% A. fumigatus and 48.5 ± 7.89% S. cerevisiae. Statistically, the results were compared with negative control and found to be highly significant (p<0.01).Key words: Allergenic fungi, inhibition, dose dependent, growth control, synthetic drugs

Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals

We conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment (EA) in a sample of ~3 million individuals and identify 3,952 approximately uncorrelated genome-wide-significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A genome-wide polygenic predictor, or polygenic index (PGI), explains 12-16% of EA variance and contributes to risk prediction for ten diseases. Direct effects (i.e., controlling for parental PGIs) explain roughly half the PGI's magnitude of association with EA and other phenotypes. The correlation between mate-pair PGIs is far too large to be consistent with phenotypic assortment alone, implying additional assortment on PGI-associated factors. In an additional GWAS of dominance deviations from the additive model, we identify no genome-wide-significant SNPs, and a separate X-chromosome additive GWAS identifies 57

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Effects of partial substitution of fishmeal by soybean meal in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis Niloticus) diet

The experimental trial was conducted in saline water to determine the replacement level of fish meal with locally available plant protein source, the soybean meal on growth performance, survival and body composition of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) juveniles reared in floating net cages. Four types of diet (35% crude protein) were formulated where fishmeal was replaced by soybean meal, partially up to 0%, 25%, 50% and 75% designated as treatment T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively. The diet T1 was the control diet where a fish meal was the main ingredient and sole source of protein. A triplicate group of thirty healthy fish, juveniles (15.58g average initial weight) were stocked in each floating net cage (1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2m). Feeding was done at the rate of apparent visual satiation twice daily for a period of six weeks. At the end of the trial results indicates that there were no significant differences (P>0.05) in percent weight gain (%), specific growth rate (SGR %), average daily weight gain (g/ind/day), and feed conversion ratio (FCR) up to 50% fishmeal replacement by comparing with the control diet without soybean meal. However, deterioration in growth performance was noted in fish receiving more than 50% dietary soybean meal. Feed conversion ratio was poorer by increasing the soybean meal over 50%, T4 (2.81±0.74) and T3, (2.55±0.36), which is significantly different from T1 (2.21±0.12) and T2 (2.34±0.34). Survival was 94.99% in all the treatment groups. No significant differences (P>0.05) were found in fish final body carcass composition of protein, ash and moisture contents, but, the lipid level of the fish's body increased (P<0.05) significantly with an increasing fish oil and soybean meal in the diets. As a result, 50% soybean meal in the diet can substitute fishmeal without jeopardizing the growth and health condition of Nile tilapia