Neuroprotective effect of virgin coconut oil on lipopoly saccharide-induced cell death in SK-N-SH and memory impairment in rat / Nur Syafiqah Rahim

Neuroinflammation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and often characterized by activation of glial cells and the subsequent upregulation of various cytokines. Neuronal damage would then set in and lead to deterioration of cognitive function. Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) has been reported to possess anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. Capitalizing on these therapeutic effects, the present study investigated for the first time the potential neuroprotective effect of VCO in vitro and in vivo. For this purpose, neuroprotection by VCO against amyloid-/3-(A/3) and Lipopolysaccharide(LPS)- induced cell death and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production of SK-N-SH (neuroblastoma cells) was assessed. The in vitro findings were validated using normal and LPS-induced memory impaired animal models in vivo. A total of 36 male Wistar rats (7-8 weeks) were randomly assigned to 6 groups (n=6/group). The treatment groups were administered with 1, 5 and lOmL/kg of VCO for 31 days by oral gavages. The cognitive functions of the treated-rats were then assessed using the Morris Water Maze Test. Collected brains were homogenised and subjected to biochemical analyses of Acetylcholine (ACh), Acetylcholinesterase (AChE), antioxidative enzymes [Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT), Glutathione (GSH), Glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and Glutathione reductase (GRx)], lipid peroxidase [Malondialdehyde (MDA)], nitric oxide (NO), cytokines (IL1-/3, IFN-y and IL-10) as well as inflammatory (COX-2 and iNOS) and amyloidogenic genes (BACE-1). Next, yet another 48 male Wistar rats (7-8 weeks) were assigned for neuroinflammatory study. The treatment groups (1, 5 and lOml/kg) were administered with 1, 5 and 1 OmL/kg of VCO for 31 days by oral gavage in the presence of 0.25 mg/kg LPS (i.p.). a-Tocopherol (150 mg/kg) was used as positive control throughout the in vivo studies. The results showed that 100|ag/mL VCO significantly improved viability of SK-N-SH (+47.25%; p<0.01 and 57.46%; p<0.001) and inhibited ROS production (-18.36%; p<0.001 and -30.96%; p<0.001) in the presence of A/3 and LPS respectively. Subsequent validation in normal rats indicated that VCO significantly enhanced cognitive functions [escape latency (-29.62±1.22%), escape distance (-23.87±0.20%) and total time spent on platform (+36.84%; p<0.05)]. The findings were mediated through elevation of ACh (+15.39%; p<0.001), SOD (+8.30%; p<0.05), CAT (+67.15%; p<0.001), GSH (+30.45%; p<0.001) and GPx (+14.31%; p<0.001) and reduction of AChE (-23.16%; p<0.001), MDA (-45.14%; p<0.001) and NO (-65.38%; p<0.001). On the other hand, exposure of LPS-induced memory impaired rats to VCO resulted significantly improved cognitive functions [escape latency(-45.87±0.61%), escape distance (-32.63+0.24%) and total time spent on platform (+81.82%; p<0.01)].The improvements were mediated through elevation of ACh (+26.80%; p<0.001), SOD (+8.25%; p<0.05), CAT (+69.50%; p<0.001), GSH (+99.27%; p<0.001), GPx (+15.10%; p<0.001), GRx (+26.40%; p<0.001) and IL-10 (+34.05%; p<0.01) and reduction of AChE (-44.83%; p<0.001), MDA (-58.73%; p<0.001), NO (-52.71%; p<0.001), IL-10 (-64.85%; p<0.001), IFN-y (-25.03%; p<0.05), COX-2 (-67.73%; p<0.001), iNOS (-65.63%; p<0.001) and BACE-1 (-75%; p<0.001). The present findings strongly implied that VCO has neuroprotective effects and has the potential to be a memory enhancer. This neuroprotective effect was mediated, at least in part, through the inflammatory, cholinergic and amyloidogenic pathways

A Domain-Specific Modelling Language for Adventure Educational Games and Flow Theory

Designing educational games is a complex task and needs collaboration between game developers and an educator. Domain-Specific Modeling Language (DSML) offers an approach to simplify the design activities of educational games and support the involvement of both game developers and educators. This paper presents an extension of Serious Game Logic and Structure Modeling Language (GLiSMo), a DSML that designs the logical and structural views of educational adventure games. The gap in the original GLiSMo is that it did not allow an educational game to be designed according to any learning theories. Furthermore, the original GLiSMo does not cover all concepts in the adventure genre. The authors intend to extend the original GLiSMo by adding the concepts of Flow Theory and concepts of the adventure genre to make it more expressive. The extended DSML is called FA-GLiSMo. The authors evaluated the expressiveness of FA-GLiSMo using Framework for Qualitative Assessment of DSLs (FQAD). The result shows that the expressiveness of FA-GLiSMo is still ‘incomplete’ due to the lack of clarity of semantics for several domain concepts. Improvements were performed, and the finalized FA-GLiSMo now has fifteen (15) concepts of the Logic diagram, nineteen (19) concepts of the Structure diagram, and a new diagram called the Flow diagram containing five (5) concepts of the Flow Theory. The authors also demonstrate in this paper the concrete syntax of FA-GLiSMo using the Tales of Monkey Island game as a case study

Visitors’ dining experience and their behavioural intention towards restaurants in Bandar Diraja Muar, Johor

Many advertisements and reviews on the varieties of food in Malaysia specifically in Bandar Diraja Muar which is located in Johor. However, there are still few research that have been done about the study of tourists’ experience and the service of restaurants in Muar. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study the dining experience of visitors and their behavioural intention towards the restaurants in Muar. This study is focused on the restaurants in Muar as the study area. A set of questionnaire is used for data collection and distributed to visitors who have experienced the food and its services in Muar. This study also used IBM SPSS to perform the analysis of the data by engaging descriptive analysis and inferential statistics. The findings of this study portrayed the quality of food in the restaurants, and the visitors’ behavioural intention based on their experience and the services that they received. Also, the research has found that there is significant relationship between visitors dining experience and their behavioural intention based on their experience and the services towards the restaurants in Muar. This contribution of this study will help the business industry of food providers in Muar to be more acknowledge and boost visitors’ behavioural intention and thus the well-known Muar as a food heaven is well-known

A legal study of the criminal trial process under the adversarial system in Malaysia / Nurliyana Zainudin…[et al.]

This research was conducted to examine the weaknesses in the criminal trial process under the adversarial system in Malaysia. In particular, the failure to provide for a fair and speedy trial in the criminal trial has been discovered throughout the research. The weakness of the criminal trial process as mentioned above is insistence upon procedure and technical error, the judge inactive role either during pre-trial or trial process, lacking the competent judge in the judiciary, the practice of the general court and also the court's conventional system which mostly based on the manual system and involving papers and handwriting. The reformats had been made to the legislative and judicial practices, specifically the amendments to Criminal Procedure Code in 2006 and 2010 as well as the establishment of a 'special court' and new management system called E-court. Based on the present weaknesses of the criminal trial process under the adversarial systet:Jl in Malaysia, the study evaluates the effectiveness and efficacy of the changes introduced to the criminal trial process. It is the conclusion of this research that there are some advantages of the reforms to the criminal trial process. However, there are also disadvantages and limitation of the reformed criminal trial process. This is due to the lacking in the enforcement and implementation of the reforms. Even though there are still many issues pertaining to the efficiency of the criminal trial process, the reform to the system is applauded and should be continued to strive for betterment of the system

A hedonic valuation in Putrajaya Wetlands

This study is designed to estimate the economic value of green spaces in the land of Putrajaya by using the Hedonic Pricing Method (HPM). Economic valuation regarding green spaces in Putrajaya is targeted to give an efficient solution in investment and also to facilitate the residents of Putrajaya upon the value of the environment that they received and the significance of reserving the great environment for future consumptions. Survey questionnaires were distributed to 415 respondents in Putrajaya Wetlands who lived in the housing area 2-15 Km from this park. A Hedonic Pricing Model is developed by taking housing price as the dependent variable and structural of the house including distance to the green area as the independent variables. Housing price is used as a proxy to quantify the economic value of green space. Two models (linear model and semi-log model) mainly based on hedonic price model are formulated and regressed through ordinary least square (OLS) method. In term of model comparison, the result revealed that semi-log model (Model 2) performed better than the linear model (Model 1). As expected, a significant inverse relationship between the housing price and its distance from the residential area and the Putrajaya Wetland has been found whereby a slight decrease of 1 Km of the distance will positively increase the housing price by 5.9%. The result positively shows that the green space has contributed indirectly towards the housing price and it indicates that green space is a vital part of urban development in the city area. In conclusion, the green space provides benefits especially regarding its economic value. Thus, conserves and preserve in maintaining this area is ought to be implemented

A Study of Retail Islamic Banking: The Relationship between Customer Knowledge and Service Quality

This paper encompasses on the relationship between customer knowledge function and service quality dimension and the effect on customer satisfaction in the context of Malaysian retail Islamic banking. As one of the challenges faced by retail Islamic banking is the customer satisfaction where the level of services rendered and knowledgeable front liners are the concerns, retail Islamic banking needs to improve on their quality of customer services and its measurement should consist of interaction quality and outcome quality. The issues of lack of customer knowledge, awareness and information on retail Islamic banking could be the resulted from the low interaction and outcome of the quality of knowledge supply. Meanwhile, distinctive attention is actually required from the Islamic banking staff due to the complexity of retail Islamic banking products. The customer knowledge function in retail Islamic banking itself should be therefore emphasized alongside with the service quality dimension in order to ensure that the supply of knowledge to the customer will in turn help to increase the customer satisfaction

Mikropolitik dan implikasinya kepada pihak berkuasa tempatan: sorotan literatur

Politik bukan hanya berpaksikan kepada politik kepartian seperti pilihanraya dan ceramah kempen, boleh juga terjadi dalam pelbagai bentuk dan situasi. Daripada isu sensitif akidah melibatkan pertembungan ideologi Syiah, kritikan Syiah Zaidiyah berkenaan Teori Imamah Syiah Imamiah dan Syiah Ismailiyah, amalan protes punk yang lahir separuh abad yang lalu sehingga membentuk sub-budaya. Namun, politik juga lahir daripada dalam pengurusan organisasi, dikenali sebagai politik organisasi atau mikropolitik. Meskipun mikro (sangat kecil), namun tidak boleh lari daripada kuasa dan pengaruh dalam mencapai matlamat peribadi. Secara umumnya, ramai ahli akademik menganggap politik organisasi sebagai tingkah laku yang berniat untuk menjaga kepentingan diri dengan menjadikan individu atau kumpulan lain sebagai korban bagi mencapai matlamat dan cita-citanya. Urusan kenaikan pangkat, perolehan tender projek, penyebaran maklumat lebih mudah dicapai dengan adanya aktiviti politik yang tidak sihat. Sehubungan itu, perbincangan ini tidak bertujuan untuk memberi fokus kepada pendekatan yang sama dalam menjawab persoalan kajian yang terarah kepada pembangunan politik daripada sudut pemerintahan dan kepartian. Malah, tidak juga berpaksikan satu bentuk analisis yang bersifat mengukur tingkat politik yang berstruktur dan melibatkan hubungan antarabangsa. Tetapi, lebih khusus kepada kepimpinan dan pentadbiran awam sebagai satu subjek tujahan dalam kerangka perbincangan bagi memahami persoalan politik organisasi dan implikasinya kepada organisasi

The impact of organizational career management towards employees’ career satisfaction

This study was aimed to investigate the impact of organizational career management towards career satisfaction among employees in a private firm in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. A total of 101 respondents were involved in this study. Questionnaire was used to collect the data and the data was analysed using statistical software to describe the descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings showed a positive and significant impact of organizational career management towards the employees’ career satisfaction. Organizational career management practices such as career planning, counselling sessions, training and workshops, mentoring, job rotation and others have given an influence to the employees’ career satisfaction. The findings suggested that employees’ can improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) as well as sustain employees’ commitment through career management activities

Impact of green building certificate on firm’s financial performance

Implementation of green building (GB) practice is one of the environmental practice taken by some developers in order to overcome the loss of green space in urban area. The developers who are implement GB practice are eligible to get GB certificate. As reported by Green Building Index (GBI) on 2016, only 8% out of 2,000 developers have GB certificate. Most of them are not interested and stated that adoption of GB certificate is not a preferred investment for their business. Their perception are contradict with the previous studies which have proved that the environmental practice is positively significant with firms’ financial performance. Hence, the objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of GB certificate on the firms’ financial performance. A total of 323 developers’ financial reports for the year 2015 were collected from Bursa Saham Malaysia and Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia. Using propensity score matching (PSM) technique, it was found that developers with GB certificate had higher return on asset (ROA) compared to developers without GB certificate. In conclusion, GB certificate have positive impact on firm’s financial performance. The finding of this study will motivate other developers to implement GB practice in their upcoming project development

The relationship between protean career and career satisfaction among employees in a manufacturing factory

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between protean career and career satisfaction among the employeesof a manufacturing company in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. A total of 100 employees had participated in this study whereby data was collected using a set of questionnaires. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data by using the descriptive statistical analysis and Spearman correlation analysis. The results showed that the level of protean career and career satisfaction was high among the employees. In addition, there was a significant and positive correlation between protean career and the employees career satisfaction. This study suggests that Malaysian employers involve employees in the organizational career management process such as by providing a realistic career path and career development opportunities for the employees