Development of smart home system based on mobile apps control using IoT for educational purposes

The Internet of Things (IoT) with its enormous growth widens its applications to the living environment of the people by changing a home to a smart home. The smart home is a system, which connect homes with various types of digital devices to communicate with each other through the internet. Based on our prior study, 59% of the respondent among Malaysians are unaware about the IoT or just heard about it without knowing its concept. Thus, this project will present a development of a smart home system based on mobile apps control using IoT to educate Malaysian. This project uses a combination of wireless technology and infrared sensor to detect the motion and a microcontroller to control the usage of appliances in the home. Blynk as a mobile app has been programmed and used to control and display the usage of LED, fan and camera. The output of the appliances will be displayed on the Blynk in kind of LED icon and stream video. The IoT system has been successfully developed and able to follow the instruction given. The LED, fan and camera will turn ON when the switch button in Blynk is pressed. The system has a limited range of operation because it depends on the Wi-Fi signal range, which is about 50 meters of the developed smart home using IoT control. The proposed smart home prototype is useful in the education sector to expose all Malaysian to the current technology especially students and staffs in the university

Optimization of a two-dimensional electrophoresis protocol for plasma proteomic profiling of obese schizophrenia patients

The proteomic approach is particularly effective for studying the association between obesity and schizophrenia. It allows for a comprehensive analysis of the complete proteome, leading to substantial breakthroughs in biomarker discovery and drug development. Isoelectric focusing (IEF) and SDS-PAGE procedures are combined in the proteomic approach known as twodimensional electrophoresis (2-DE), which separates proteins according to their isoelectric point and mass. This study aimed to investigate optimized conditions for the 2-DE technique by focusing on the selection of an immobilized pH gradient (IPG) strip. Protein extraction was performed on pooled plasma samples from 10 obese schizophrenia patients. The extracted protein samples were loaded onto two different pH (7 cm) IPG strips. The pH ranges between (I) 3 – 10 and (ii) 4 – 7. IEF was conducted following the PROTEAN IEF Cell System protocol, followed by SDS-PAGE. The resulting gels were stained with BioSafe Coomassie stain and washed with milliQ water. The stained gels were scanned, and the images were analyzed using PD Quest software. High-abundance proteins with a molecular weight range of 60 – 80 kDa were detected on both IPG strips. The results showed that using a pH 3 – 10 IPG strip, 245 protein spots were detected and distributed throughout the gel, with a notable concentration in the middle. Whereas using a pH 4 – 7 IPG strip resulted in the detection of 321 protein spots, indicating a higher quantity of protein spots with increased intensity. This is attributed to the improved fractionation of proteins resulting from the narrower and more focused pH range. Thus, it can be inferred that utilizing this pH range will yield optimal outcomes in protein separation and analysis. This study suggests selecting a pH 4 – 7 IPG strip is the recommended choice to achieve enhanced resolution and precise detection of protein spots in plasma samples from obese schizophrenia patients when employing the 2-DE method

Schizophrenia and apolipoprotein: a 10-year bibliometric analysis

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a chronic and complex mental disorder that significantly impacts one’s quality of life. The expansion of proteomic studies over the past decade offers a better understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of schizophrenia and the formulation of a protein targeted therapeutic approach. This study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis on the role of apolipoprotein as a biomarker in schizophrenia to provide a summary of its chronicle, present state and to identify potential future research directions. Materials and method: Publications on the association between schizophrenia and apolipoprotein were retrieved from the Scopus database using the search terms “schizophrenia” and “apolipoprotein”. Only original or review articles in English published between 2013 and 2023 were included. The bibliometric analysis was carried out using the R software packages Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny. Results: The filtered search identified 89 documents (80 original articles and 9 review articles) that generally showed an increasing trend with an annual growth rate of 10.31 percent. There were 580 authors that contributed to this field, with an average of eight to nine people co-authoring each paper. Altogether, 64 journals contributed to this field, with Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, Frontiers in Psychiatry, and Translational Psychiatry being the three most productive. China leads in scientific production, followed by the Netherlands and the United States. In terms of country collaboration, the United Kingdom and Germany had the highest level of collaboration. The important keywords in the clusters were schizophrenia, biomarkers, proteomics, apolipoprotein E, antipsychotic drugs, bipolar disorder, and obesity. According to the thematic evolution analysis, apolipoprotein E has been frequently discussed and associated with schizophrenia and antipsychotic drugs. Conclusion: The association between schizophrenia and apolipoprotein has grown in significance over the past decade. Our findings highlight the potential role of apolipoprotein E in the establishment of schizophrenia and warrant further exploration

Review Of Desiccant In The Drying And Air-Conditioning Application

Desiccant is a hygroscopic substance generally used in the dryer and air-conditioning system as a drying agent. The function of desiccant is to remove moisture from the air to reduce the humidity of the surrounding air been conditioned. This paper presents several works on the performance of desiccant material in the drying and air-conditioning application. It puts focus on the various advantages and disadvantages of the use of desiccant as a drying agent. There are some advantages of using desiccant include consistent drying and low energy usage. However, there are several disadvantages of using desiccants which are low capacity for moisture absorption and pressure drop in solid desiccant. Solar drying applications have some advantages such as being comparatively cheaper than other methods and less risk of spoiling the product. On the contrary, drying applications have disadvantages include being lower in comparison to the original foodstuff and drying foods eventually leads to shrinkage. The advantages of using desiccant in air-conditioning applications offer dehumidified fresh air to keep the building's temperature in a comfortable range and enhances water recovery efficiency. There are disadvantages such as desiccant will substantially impact the system's performance and desiccant should be cooled after completely dried

Bibliometric insights into Schizophrenia and genetic variation

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder that is known for its complexity as well as involves genetic variation. The aim of this study was to explore the trend in the field of genetic variation-related research in schizophrenia from a bibliometric perspective. Materials and methods: Research articles on schizophrenia and genetic variation-related research were obtained from the Scopus database from its inception to October 20, 2023. The search strategy was set as the following using the search terms "Schizophrenia", "genetic variation", “snp” and “cnv”. Original articles, reviews, and proceedings were included in the analysis. Using filters, only English articles were selected and used for further analysis. R packages “Bibliometrix” and “Biblioshiny” were used to summarize the main findings, count the occurrences of the top keywords, visualize the collaboration network between countries, and generate a three-field plot. VOSviewer software was applied to conduct keyword co-occurrence analyses. Results: A total of 403 publications on schizophrenia and genetic variation were included. Publications were mainly from the USA, UK, and China. The highest number of publications was found in a list of relevant journals. Apart from “schizophrenia” and “genetic variation”, the terms “bipolar disorder,” “autism,” and “GWAS” were also the most frequently used keywords. Conclusions: Over the past 17 years, this bibliometric analysis has mapped out an important knowledge structure consisting of countries, institutions, authors, journals, and articles in the research field of schizophrenia and genetic variation. The findings provide not only a comprehensive perspective on the wider landscape of this research topic but also pave the way for potential precision medicine approaches, enabling more targeted therapeutic interventions based on individual genetic profiles

Abstracts of the International Halal Science Conference 2023

This book presents the extended abstracts of the selected contributions to the International Halal Science Conference, held on 22-23 August 2023 by the International Institute for Halal Research and Training (INHART), IIUM, Malaysia in collaboration with Halalan Thayyiban Research Centre, University Islam Sultan Sharif (UNISSA), Brunei Darussalam. With the increasing global interest in halal products and services, this conference is timely. Conference Title:  International Halal Science ConferenceConference Acronym: IHASC23Conference Theme: Halal Industry Sustainability Through ScienceConference Date: 22-23 August 2023Conference Venue: International Islamic University (IIUM), MalaysiaConference Organizer: International Institute for Halal Research and Training (INHART), International Islamic University (IIUM), Malaysi