The Effects of Walking with a Load in the Heat on Physiological Responses among Military Reserve Female Cadets

International Journal of Exercise Science 13(2): 900-911, 2020. This study aimed to investigate the effects of walking in a hot and humid environment while wearing a combat suit with a load on physiological responses among the Malaysian Military Reserve Officer Training Unit (ROTU) female cadets. Eight healthy female ROTU cadets (age: 21.3 ± 1.0 years old; height: 156.3 ± 4.9 cm; weight: 55.6 ± 7.5 kg) participated in this randomised, crossover trial. They walked for 1 h on a treadmill at 3 km.h-1 while carrying either 8.2 kg load (WL) or without load (WOL) in a room maintained at 30°C and 70% relative humidity. Heart rate, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), and tympanic temperature were recorded at regular intervals during the trials. Nude body weight was recorded before and after the walk to determine body weight loss and sweat rate. Urine samples were also collected before and after the walk to determine urine specific gravity of the participants. There was a significant main effect of time and interaction for heart rate (p \u3c 0.001) during the experimental trials. Tympanic temperature was significantly higher at 60th min in WL trial (p \u3c 0.05) compared to the WOL trial. Similarly, RPE was found to be significantly higher in WL trial (p \u3c 0.01) compared to the WOL trial. However, the percentage of body weight loss and sweat rate was significantly different between trials (p \u3c 0.05). Wearing a combat suit with a load showed significantly increased metabolic demands compared to wearing combat suit alone during prolonged walking in a hot and humid environment

The Effect of Glutamine in Modulating Exertional Heat Stress Response of Intestinal Cells in Trained and Untrained Runners

Glutamine is the preferred substrate of intestinal cells and is required for the protection of intestinal cells integrity, helping to prevent exercise-induced endotoxin leakage from the intestine during stressful conditions. Increased endotoxins in the blood circulation (also known as endotoxaemia) has been shown to trigger systemic inflammation which is implicated in exertional heat stroke. This study examined firstly whether orally administered glutamine helps to reduce intestinal injury following an acute high intensity exercise session in hot conditions and secondly whether there is a different outcome according to fitness levels in runners. A randomized, double-blinded crossover study design was utilized. Twelve runners unacclimatised to heat, divided into trained [T; n=6; maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) = 61.2 ± 1.0 ml∙kg-1∙min-1] and untrained (UT; n=6; VO2max = 51.0 ± 0.7 ml∙kg-1∙min-1) groups, ingested either a placebo or glutamine dipeptide supplement (L-alanyl-L-glutamine; 0.2 g/kg bodyweight/day) for 5 consecutive days before running at 70%VO2max in a climate chamber (30°C, 40% relative humidity) for 1 hour. Cardiac output, stroke volume, heart rates, sweat loss, percent dehydration, rectal and skin surface temperatures were measured. Venous blood samples at baseline, immediately after completion of run and 1-hour post run were analysed for endotoxins and intestinal fatty acid binding proteins (I-FABP) as markers of intestinal injury. Intestinal permeability was measured at pre and post exercise using dual sugar probes (L-R; lactulose and rhamnose). No significant difference was observed in all responses for training status. L-R ratios remained unchanged with or without glutamine. However, a significant main effect for time and treatment was observed for plasma I-FABP (

<i>Neisseria</i> species as pathobionts in bronchiectasis

Neisseria species are frequently identified in the bronchiectasis microbiome, but they are regarded as respiratory commensals. Using a combination of human cohorts, next-generation sequencing, systems biology, and animal models, we show that bronchiectasis bacteriomes defined by the presence of Neisseria spp. associate with poor clinical outcomes, including exacerbations. Neisseria subflava cultivated from bronchiectasis patients promotes the loss of epithelial integrity and inflammation in primary epithelial cells. In vivo animal models of Neisseria subflava infection and metabolipidome analysis highlight immunoinflammatory functional gene clusters and provide evidence for pulmonary inflammation. The murine metabolipidomic data were validated with human Neisseria-dominant bronchiectasis samples and compared with disease in which Pseudomonas-, an established bronchiectasis pathogen, is dominant. Metagenomic surveillance of Neisseria across various respiratory disorders reveals broader importance, and the assessment of the home environment in bronchiectasis implies potential environmental sources of exposure. Thus, we identify Neisseria species as pathobionts in bronchiectasis, allowing for improved risk stratification in this high-risk group.Published versio

Biofilm morphology and nitrification activities: Recovery of nitrifying biofilm particles covered with heterotrophic outgrowth

10.1016/j.biortech.2003.05.004Bioresource Technology952209-214BIRT

Nitrogen removal using combined ultracompact biofilm reactor-packed bed system

10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9372(2003)129:1(43)Journal of Environmental Engineering129143-51JOEE

A long run initial yield for offices: A panel cointegration test

10.1080/09599910110110680Journal of Property Research1911-1

Bacterial imaging with photostable upconversion fluorescent nanoparticles

10.1016/j.biomaterials.2013.12.060Biomaterials3592987-2998BIMA

A grid enabled E-theses and dissertations repository system

Some of the universities in Malaysia are still implementing hybrid Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) approach in managing Theses and Dissertations (TD). One of the limitations of the hybrid ETD approach is its online cataloguing method, which is only available at the physical location of the TD instead of enabling the information to be retrieved online. Maintaining the performance and the data accessing rate of an ETD system has become challenging, due in part to the high number of scholars who utilise and access the system. In order to allow remote access and maintain the services such as scalability, accessibility, availability and expressibility, a Grid Enabled E-Theses and dissertations repository system (GREET) has been proposed in this paper to provide uniform access of knowledge integration among distributed heterogeneous platforms and repositories by using data grid technology. Comparative performance results between a non-grid architecture and GREET has been benchmarked. It has been proven that GREET is able to increase the processing time approximately three times faster than the non-grid architecture. Furthermore, multiple file streams can be opened to support larger volume and larger capacity of file operation so that GREET is able to decrease the chances of network congestion caused by input/output file operations. For future direction, research will be focused on searching algorithm using data mining or pattern discovery to minimise the respond time

Simultaneous ammonium-nitrogen and copper removal, and copper recovery using nitrifying biofilm from the Ultra-Compact Biofilm Reactor

10.1016/j.biortech.2006.10.048Bioresource Technology99146614-6620BIRT