Gene expression of Anx3 in Pb-treated Nicotiana tabacum using a real-time RT-PCR

Lead (Pb) is one of the highly persistent, toxic, and widely distributed heavy metal pollutants in the environment. This heavy metal has a tendency to enter human food chain, thus affecting public health. One effective way to remove heavy metals pollutant is by using plants, a technology known as phytoremediation. One such plant that is routinely employed as an experimental model for such studies is Nicotiana tabacum. As tobacco plants are not generally consumed by herbivores, it minimizes the possibility of Pb from entering food chain. A number of studies suggest that annexins, a calcium-binding protein, does play a role in plant stress response. The expression of annexin gene in plants appeared to be regulated by tissue-specific developmental and environmental signal. A vacuole-associated annexin from N. tabacum, Anx3, was investigated, to observe the involvement of this gene in Pb-induced stress. Reverse transcription following quantitative real-time 0olymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) is a useful analysis to study gene expression. In this analysis, a reference gene that acts as internal control (housekeeping gene) is routinely employed for normalization of qRT-PCR against the target gene (Anx3). The candidate reference genes, L25, EF-1α, and Ntubc2, were evaluated using suitable primer pairs in order to select the most stable reference gene for normalization of qRT-PCR in this study. Using geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper programs, the most suitable reference gene identified in this study was L25. The relative quantification of Anx3 gene expression normalizing against L25 was accomplished by REST software. The expression level of Anx3 in Pb-treated N. tabacum was upregulated by 2.2-fold (p < 0.05). The experimental methods used and the participation of Anx3 in defense against Pb stress will be discussed

KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF UNREGISTERED MEDICINES AMONG PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC DISEASE AT URBAN HEALTH CLINIC, KELANTAN, MALAYSIA

Introduction: Products registered with the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) have two main features: MAL Registration Number and Meditag™ Hologram sticker. Both of these features need to be displayed on each pack of drug sales. Missing either one or both above features consider as unregistered medicines. This study aims to determine the prevalence and factors associated with knowledge, attitude and practice of unregistered medicines usage among patients with chronic disease attending Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 108 respondents using convenient sampling was conducted at the outpatient unit of Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia, from June 2019 to July 2019. Results: The prevalence of unregistered medicines usage was 15.7%. Although the respondents had good knowledge about unregistered medicines. More than half (64.8%) of respondents have good knowledge of unregistered knowledge and 91.7% of respondents have negative attitude towards unregistered medicines. Factors associated with practice of unregistered medicines use is found to be level of education and perceived of health believe. Lower education and perceived benefit of unregistered medicines 4 times and 12 times more likely to take unregistered medicines respectively compare to higher education level and perceived no health benefit.  Conclusion: In conclusion, prevalence of unregistered medicines usage was 15.7%. More than half (64.8%) of the respondents were categorized as having good knowledge. We need to strengthen our education program to modify patient's belief on the non-benefit using unregistered medicines

Literacy Fun Box / Amirul Aswad Rusli... [et al.]

This writing report is on a theoretical and empirical investigation of learning process of dyslexic children with a particular reference for students to understand the learning process in P&P session in context of educational factor. This understanding is found to be relate to the educational thinking as reflected in dyslexic responses towards the observation and product testing. By follow systematically of solution to solve, a common problem that held under similar conditions in respective learning process from the dyslexic children. How they perceive or understand progressively what is involved in the different phrase of the learning process in their academic factor. To draw the related comparisons and to identify the differences between learning process and co-current academic system for dyslexic children

Managing COVID-19 pandemic in teaching hospitals: an early preparedness setting

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the 2019-20 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on 11th of March 2020. The Ministry of Health, Malaysia has made preparations for the involvement of all government hospitals, including some teaching hospitals. This report elaborates and discusses the early establishment of the Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (HCTM CPRC), highlighting how teaching hospitals function in handling the clinical and epidemiological management of COVID-19 among hospital staff. The setting comprises of four critical functions of the HCTM CPRC, namely case investigation, close contact tracing, surveillance for data reporting and risk communication. This report highlighted that a CPRC in teaching hospitals benefits not only the patients and the hospital administration but also all hospital staff, especially in managing COVID-19 pandemic emergency crisis

A Rotary Spacer System for Energy-Efficient Membrane Fouling Control in Oil/Water Emulsion Filtration

Membrane fouling deteriorates membrane filtration performances. Hence, mitigating membrane fouling is the key factor in sustaining the membrane process, particularly when treating fouling-prone feed, such as oil/water emulsions. The use of spacers has been expanded in the membrane module system, including for membrane fouling control. This study proposed a rotating spacer system to ameliorate membrane fouling issues when treating an oil/water emulsion. The system&rsquo;s effectiveness was assessed by investigating the effect of rotating speed and membrane-to-disk gap on the hydraulic performance and the energy input and through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The results showed that the newly developed rotary spacer system was effective and energy-efficient for fouling control. The CFD simulation results proved that the spacer rotations induced secondary flow near the membrane surface and imposed shear rate and lift force to exert fouling control. Increasing the rotation speed to an average linear velocity of 0.44 m/s increased the permeability from 126.8 &plusmn; 2.1 to 175.5 &plusmn; 2.7 Lm&minus;2h&minus;1bar&minus;1. The system showed better performance at a lower spacer-to-membrane gap, in which increasing the gap from 0.5 to 2.0 cm lowered the permeability from 175.5 &plusmn; 2.7 to 126.7 &plusmn; 2.0 Lm&minus;2h&minus;1bar&minus;1. Interestingly, the rotary system showed a low energy input of 1.08 to 4.08 &times; 10&minus;3 kWhm&minus;3 permeate when run at linear velocities of 0.27 to 0.44 ms&minus;1. Overall, the findings suggest the competitiveness of the rotary spacer system as a method for membrane fouling control

Polarizing effect of MoSe2-coated optical waveguides

In this paper, an optical waveguide polarizer based on molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2) coating is proposed and demonstrated. By applying drop-casting method, MoSe2 is coated onto an optical polymer waveguide. The extinction ratio is recorded at wavelength of 980 nm, 1310 nm, 1480 nm and 1550 nm. The highest extinction ratio obtained through this experiment is 14.0 dB, in the 1480 nm wavelength region, with MoSe2 coating thickness and coating length of 24 µm and 1.2 mm, respectively. This work demonstrates a polarizing effect of MoSe2 coated SU-8 polymer optical waveguide

40 Hadiths on core values SASMEC @IIUM (40 Hadis berkenaan nilai murni SASMEC @IIUM)

This book of 40 hadiths on the respective SASMEC @IIUM core values act s as a reference for SASMEC @IIUM staff to read and refer for a better understanding of selected core value