Misappropriation of assets: A decepticon of leakages in Malaysian public sector

Decepticon, true to its name, may transform into various disguise.The villain take many forms from a flashy luxurious cars to even military vehicles. Similar to Decepticon, the episodes of misappropriation of assets in government sector runs from small misuse of stationeries to misuse of official vehicles for personal interest. It is indeed a leakage of expenditure to the government because the authority has spent unnecessary costs to cater this type of crime.Many has regarded asset misappropriation as harmless.Though the incidences might not be significant, yet, if it is left untreated, the authority will spend more money than it should. Hence, the objectives of this study is to find the empirical evidence on awareness against fraud deterrence among Malaysian public servants. As propositions, this study resolved on the inspiration that resilience against frauds can be developed through trainings, effective enforcement and control.Barrier such employees’ character should be considered as deterrence for fraud awareness. Based on Rules no.4.(2)(c) of Peraturan-Peraturan Pegawai Awam (Kelakuan dan Tatatertib) 1993 (Pindaan 2002), this research employed semi-structural interview method to capture details and descriptive data so that this study is able to get the comprehensive understanding on the missing link between government inspiration and practice.4 public servants ranging from 1 to 20 years of service have been selected for our preliminary studies to validate our research propositions.In effect, despite of that the policy is massively available in the government’s portal, the respondent claimed that they were not familiar with Rules no.4.(2)(c) and their decisions on the do’s and don’ts are entirely dependable on their faith and internal strength.Mentality of public servants is identified as key barrier towards awareness of fraud deterrence.There were few studies on fraud deterrence in Malaysian public sector.This study focus on the same scenario, yet supplemented with a study on fraud awareness amongst the government servant

Misappropriation of assets in local authorities: A challenge to good governance

Misappropriation of assets is indeed becoming a major concern in the public sector.In this paper, we will attempt to frame the results survey on assets misappropriation that might occur in two city councils.It is found that the incidence of misappropriation of assets occurs when employees used the official vehicles, computers, and facilities for personal interest.Even though the impact might not significant, yet, if it is left untreated, the symptom will become an incurable disease.As a result, the trivial instalments will create tremendous impact on the financial waste due to the unnecessary expenditure incurred

Impact of nitric oxide synthase 2 gene variant on risk of anti-tuberculosis drug- induced liver injury in the Malaysian population

Liver injury is a great threat associated with anti-tuberculosis (anti-TB) medication. Genetic variations in genes encoding drug-metabolising enzymes further enhance this threat. We aimed to explore genetic contributions by evaluating the impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the anti-tuberculosis (AT) metabolism pathway genes and within their respective chromosomes on anti-tuberculosis drug- induced liver injury (AT-DILI). Patients (n= 90) were recruited and 170 SNPs were genotyped using Illumina array and validated using Sanger Sequencing. The well-studied N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2*6) rs1799930 and cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) C1/C1 were not significantly associated with AT-DILI in our cohort but nitric oxide synthase (NOS2A) rs11080344-C was found to be significantly higher in the cases than the controls (OR 2.73, 95% CI 1.12-6.64, P= 0.027). Association studies on all other SNPs within the anti-tuberculosis metabolism pathway genes and within their respective chromosomes also found no significant report. Our study suggests that genetic variation in NOS2A could influence the occurrence of AT-DILI

A step-wise approach to a national hepatitis C screening strategy in Malaysia to meet the WHO 2030 targets: proposed strategy, coverage, and costs

In Malaysia, more than 330 000 individuals are estimated to be chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), but less than 2% have been treated to date. To estimate the required coverage and costs of a national screening strategy to inform the launch of an HCV elimination program. We designed an HCV screening strategy based on a "stepwise" approach. This approach relied on targeting of people who inject drugs in the early years, with delayed onset of widespread general population screening. Annual coverage requirements and associated costs were estimated to ensure that the World Health Organization elimination treatment targets were met. In total, 6 million individuals would have to be screened between 2018 and 2030. Targeting of people who inject drugs in the early years would limit annual screening coverage to less than 1 million individuals from 2018 to 2026. General population screening would have to be launched by 2026. Total costs were estimated at MYR 222 million ($58 million). Proportional to coverage targets, 60% of program costs would fall from 2026 to 2030

Novel genetic variants of Hepatitis B Virus in fulminant hepatitis

Fulminant hepatitis (FH) is a life-threatening liver disease characterised by intense immune attack and massive liver cell death. The common precore stop codon mutation of hepatitis B virus (HBV), A1896, is frequently associated with FH, but lacks specificity. This study attempts to uncover all possible viral nucleotides that are specifically associated with FH through a compiled sequence analysis of FH and non-FH cases from acute infection. We retrieved 67 FH and 280 acute non-FH cases of hepatitis B from GenBank and applied support vector machine (SVM) model to seek candidate nucleotides highly predictive of FH. Six best candidates with top predictive accuracy, 92.5%, were used to build a SVM model; they are C2129 (85.3%), T720 (83.0%), Y2131 (82.4%), T2013 (82.1%),K2048 (82.1%), and A2512 (82.1%). This model gave a high specificity (99.3%), positive predictive value (95.6%), and negative predictive value (92.1%), but only moderate sensitivity (64.2%).We successfully built a SVM model comprising six variants that are highly predictive and specific for FH: four in the core region and one each in the polymerase and the surface regions. These variants indicate that intracellular virion/core retention could play an important role in the progression to FH

Prevalence of HLA-DQ Alleles and Haplotypes in Patients with Hepatitis B Infection

Objective: This study aimed to investigate whether HLA-DQA1 and HLA–DQB1 alleles and haplotypes are associated with progression of HBV infection to liver cirrhosis (LC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in HBV infected patients. Methods: Genotyping of the HLA-DQ variants were carried out in 121 HBV patients (including 52 HBV without LC/HCC and 69 HBV with LC/HCC), using a polymerase chain reaction amplification with sequence specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSO) technique and Luminex profiling system. Results: The two highest allele frequencies were seen for HLA-DQA1*01 and HLA-DQB1*03. A total of 66% of the HBV patients with LC/HCC and 62% of HBV patients without LC/HCC are carriers of HLA-DQA1*01 (p value= 0.908, OR= 0.95, CI= 0.41 - 2.10). As for HLA-DQB1*03, 73% of the HBV patients with LC/HCC and 60% of HBV patients without LC /HCC are carriers of this allele (p value= 0.320, OR= 1.56, CI= 0.65 - 3.72). In addition, 62% of HBV patients with LC/HCC (n=32) and 48% of HBV patients without LC/HCC (n=25) were carriers of haplotype DQA1*01-DQB1*05 (p value= 0.495, OR= 0.76, CI= 0.34 - 1.68). Conclusion: no association was seen between the HLA-DQA1 and the HLA–DQB1 alleles and haplotypes with HBV disease progression in the Malaysian population.

Synthesis and optical properties of ZnO-TeO2 glass system

Problem statement: Systematic series of ZnO-TeO2 glasses with mole fraction of 0.10-0.40 ZnO content with an interval of 0.05 were studied to obtain their physical and optical properties. Approach: All the glass samples were synthesized by rapid melting quenching method under controlled conditions, while their refractive indices (n) were measured by the EL X-02C high precision ellipsometer. The room temperature absorption of all glass samples were determined using Camspec M350 double beam UV-visible spectrophotometer. The infrared (IR) spectra of each glass samples were recorded with Thermo Nicolet Fourier Transform-Infrared (FT-IR) spectrophotometer. Their physical properties were measured and the amorphous nature was confirmed by the x-ray diffraction technique. Results: The increase of refractive index of the TeO2-ZnO glasses with the addition of ZnO was best explained in terms of either electron density or polarizability of the ions. The absorption edge shift to higher energy (shorter wavelength) with increasing ZnO content was observed in this glass. The optical band gap (Eopt) of zinc tellurite glass decreases with increasing of ZnO content probably due to the increment of Non-Bridging Oxygen (NBO) ion contents which eventually shifted the band edge to lower energies. Conclusion/Recommendation: The physical and optical properties of zinc tellurite glasses were found generally affected by the changes in the glass composition. FTIR spectra of zinc tellurite glass revealed broad, weak and strong absorption bands in the investigated range of wave numbers from 4000-400 cm-1 which associated with their corresponding bond modes of vibration and the glass structure. The addition of ZnO into TeO2 glass network shifted the major band from 626 cm-1 (for pure TeO2 glass) to the band at around 669 cm-1

Estimating the population size of people who inject drugs in Malaysia for 2014 and 2017 using the benchmark-multiplier method

Background: As hepatitis C elimination efforts are launched, national strategies for screening and treatment scale-up in countries, such as Malaysia, must be designed and implemented. Strategic information, including estimates of the total number of patients chronically-infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and the size of key populations, such as people who inject drugs (PWID), is critical to informing these efforts. For Malaysia, the estimate of the PWID population size most frequently reported in global systematic reviews is for the year 2009. Objectives: To support ongoing national HCV planning efforts, we aimed to estimate the national population size of active PWID in Malaysia, for the years 2014 and 2017. Methods: To estimate the PWID population size, we applied standard benchmark-multiplier methodology, frequently used for PWID population size estimation, and extended it by adjusting for cessation of injecting drug use within the benchmark and calculating statistical uncertainty intervals. Results: The estimated active PWID population size was 153,000 (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 136,000-172,000) for 2014 and 156,000 (95% UI: 137,000-188,000) for 2017. Conclusions/importance: This updated estimate of the active PWID population size in Malaysia will help inform effective planning for the scale-up of HCV screening and treatment services. The proposed methodology is applicable to other countries that maintain national HIV registries and have conducted Integrated Biological and Behavioral Surveys among active PWID

Penilaian tahap pembelajaran mengenai isu HIV/aids dalam kalangan pegawai agama di Malaysia

Formal learning on the issues of HIV/AIDS is very important in order to get accurate information, comprehensive understanding and efforts to adress these symptoms efficiently. Thus, the objective of this study is to evaluate the level of participants' learning of the Manual on Islam and HIV/ AIDS training programme based on information obtained from the contents of the programme and from the outreach activities. The study was conducted through quantitative approach by applying Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model (1959). Data was collected through survey method by distributing questionnaires to 350 Religious Officers from twelve categories that had been trained from 2011 until 2014. They were selected through random sampling techniques