A survey of women entrepreneurs in Malaysia: A case of Siti Khadijah Market, Kelantan and Pekan Rabu, Kedah

Efforts taken by Malaysian government to encourage her people to venture into business are undeniable.As women constitute nearly half of the total population, women’s contribution towards national economic development has been recognized by Malaysian government. Women have to compete together with men in order to ensure that their status within the society is uplifted. Their involvement as business entrepreneurs make them at par with other successful male counterparts. This paper is to look at women entrepreneurs at both Siti Khadijah Market, Kelantan and Pekan Rabu, Kedah.Data were based on research done to both places.The findings of the research show that strong competition has been identified as the most challenge those women faced as an entrepreneur. Besides, assisting family total income is the most influencing factor that lead them to become entrepreneurs and acquiring appropriate skills as entrepreneur is also has been identified will further improve on their way of doing business

Women and entrepreneurship: An overview of women entrepreneurship programs in Malaysia

Entrepreneurs have been recognized by many as the catalyst for economic growth and development.Raising women as entrepreneurs is a part of current government initiative.Although women entrepreneurs have become more important players in the entrepreneurial landscape, the number is still small as compared to businesses owned by men.This paper will look into the entreperneurial programs implemented by governmental agencies in Malaysia.After looking at the programs, analysis of the programs will be further discussed. Indeed, this paper found that there are only a number of entrepreneurship programs which are specially designed for women by some selected agencies despites lack of evaluation of existing entrepreneurship programs

Game-Based Rehabilitation Program for Community-Based Centers in Malaysia

Rehabilitation and intervention therapy is a program medically structured for disabled patients due to unfortunate events or born with disabilities. Rehabilitation and intervention therapy require prolonged, continuous, and intensive recovery activities that can be time-consuming, difficult, costly, and tedious.  Based on studies conducted, rehabilitation and intervention programs are not well-received by many patients due to some reasons.  Hence, innovative home-based and community-based rehabilitation and intervention programs are to be advocated and endorsed to engage these disabled patients continuing their required treatments for better success in rehab. Focus groups consist of three community-based rehabilitation centers in Putrajaya, Malaysia, were studied; the goal is to investigate the objectivity of current rehabilitation and intervention programs held. Rehabilitation and intervention programs conducted are designed and implemented based on the disability types of each patient (trainees), executed by teachers, and also professional therapists. Among the many programs held, it had been identified that for revamp; it can be done within one of the programs, which will boost the current rehabilitation and intervention program; the focus should be at the Prepare for School program. The program focuses on younger trainees (aged 5 – 9 years old), preparing them to enter school. The program uses multimedia courseware as one medium of delivery. Respondents highly recommended that there is a need to infuse and improve the current game elements within the courseware. The change is imperative and necessitated for community-based rehabilitation and intervention program.

Using sound for stress therapy in a virtual-reality environment

This paper discusses about comparing different sounds used in stress therapy among Malaysians. The aim of the stress therapy is to reduce stress among users, thus a virtual reality environment was used which replaces the traditional guided therapy sessions. Two groups were studied in the experiment; the first group - the therapies were guided by computer and sound types applied were instruction, natural sound and zikr. Meanwhile, the second group - sessions were also guided by computer but with different sound types (instructions, natural sound and instrumental music).The result of the experiment showed that the first group-guided with natural and zikr sound choice does have higher impact to positive emotions compared those exposed to natural and instrumental sound choice

Open globe injury in Hospital Serdang - an 8-year retrospective review

Introduction: Open globe injury may lead to devastating visual outcome. Urgent management and subsequent follow-up is important to maximise recovery. More data on open globe injury in Malaysia is needed to identify risk groups and prognostic factors. This study was carried out to investigate open globe injury, the socio-epidemic profile, clinical characteristics and outcome of the open globe injury in the Hospital Serdang, Malaysia. Methods: All patients managed for open globe injury to Hospital Serdang from January 2006 to December 2013 were included in this retrospective case review. Student’s T-test was used to determine difference between means and chi-square for categorical data. P value of less than 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. Results: There were 155 patients managed for open globe injury with three of them had bilateral involvement. As such, there were 158 cases eligible for analysis in this study. The average age was 32.2 ± 16.5 years (mean ± standard deviation, SD). Male was at higher risk for open globe injury. Predictors for poor visual outcome were foreign nationality (p=0.047), lid laceration (0.008), type of injury (p=0.001), site of injury (p=0.008), RAPD (p<0.001), uveal prolapse (p<0.001), hyphaema (p=0.008), lens damage (p=0.010), vitreous loss (0.014), retinal detachment (p=0.011), intraocular foreign body (IOFB) (0.014) and poor presenting uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) (p<0.001). Conclusions: Occupational injury was a main cause of open globe injury in Hospital Serdang. Although in general the visual outcome is good, effort should be put to prevent work-related injury

Batch and semi-continuous biogas production from cattle manure

Anaerobic digestion of cattle manure was investigated to estimate the volume and the quality of biogas produced for both batch and semi-continuous system. The process was performed in a lab scale bioreactor at 55oC; the semi-continuous experiment was conducted at an organic loading rate (OLR) of 1.7 kg VS m-3 day-1 equivalent to hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 20 days. The volatile solid-based biogas and methane yield were observed to be averagely 0.346 m3 kg -1 VS added and 0.19 m3 kg -1 VS added respectively. The average methane content was 55% from the cattle manure during the anaerobic digestion process. Overall, the result of this study indicates that the quality of biogas obtained from the cattle wastes can be used for heat and power productio

Potential anticancer effect of red spinach (Amaranthus gangeticus) extract.

The objective of this study was to determine the anti cancer effects of red spinach (Amaranthus gangeticus Linn) in vitro and in vivo. For in vitro study, microtitration cytotoxic assay was done using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-il)-2,5- diphenil tetrazolium bromide (MTT) kit assay. Results showed that aqueous extract of A gangeticus inhibited the proliferation of liver cancer cell line (HepG2) and breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The IC50values were 93.8 μg/ml and 98.8 μg/ml for HepG2 and MCF-7, respectively. The inhibitory effect was also observed in colon cancer cell line (Caco-2), but a lower percentage compared to HepG2 and MCF-7. For normal cell line (Chang Liver), there was no inhibitory effect. In the in vivo study, hepatocarcinogenesis was monitored in rats according to Solt and Farber (1976) without partial hepatectomy. Assay of tumour marker enzymes such as glutathione S-transferase (GST), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), uridyl diphosphoglucuronyl transferase (UDPGT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were carried out to determine the severity of hepatocarcinogenesis. The result found that supplementation of 5%, 7.5% and 10% of A. gangeticus aqueous extract to normal rats did not show any significant difference towards normal control (P <0.05). The exposure of the rats to chemical carcinogens diethylnitrosamine (DEN) and 2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF) showed a significant increase in specific enzyme activity of GGT, GST, UDPGT and ALP compared to normal control (P <0.05). However, it was found that the supplementation of A. gangeticus aqueous extract in 5%, 7.5% and 10% to cancer-induced rats could inhibit the activity of all tumour marker enzymes especially at 10% (P 0.05). Supplementation of anti cancer drug glycyrrhizin at suggested dose (0.005%) did not show any suppressive effect towards cancer control (P <0.05). In conclusion, A. gangeticus showed anticancer potential in in vitro and in vivo studies

Estrogen receptor-α gene, codon 594 (G3242A) polymorphism among Iranian women with breast cancer: a case control study

A case-control study was conducted to establish a database of ESR1 polymorphisms in Iranian population in order to compare Western and Iranian (Middle East) distributions and to evaluate ESR1 polymorphism as an indicator of clinical outcome. The ESR1 gene was scanned in Iranian patients newly diagnosed invasive breast tumors, (150 patients) and in healthy individuals (147 healthy control individuals). PCR single-strand conformation polymorphism technology and direct sequencing was performed. The silent single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) was found, as reported previously in other studies, but at significantly different frequencies. The frequency of genotype 01 in codon 594 (ACG-ACA), (G3242A), exon 8 was significantly higher in breast cancer patients (48.0%) than in control individuals (1.4%; p = 0.001). The allele 1 in codon 594 was significantly more common in breast cancer patients with age at menarche </=12 (40.8%) than in those which their menstruation began at older than 12 years old (23.9%; p = 0.002). The allele 1 in codon 594 exhibited, the greater the frequency, the lesser the likelihood of LN metastasis. Present results demonstrated that this particular SNP marker may increase accuracy in predicting LN. Therefore, this SNP marker further increased predictive accuracy in Iranian population. These data suggest that ESR1 polymorphisms are correlated with various aspects of breast cancer in Iranian ESR1 genotype, as determined during pre-surgical evaluation, might represent a surrogate marker to increase predicting breast cancer in Iranian population

Anaerobic digestion of cattle manure: influence of inoculum concentration

This study evaluated the performance of anaerobic treatment of cattle manure (CM) with palm oil mill effluent (POME) inoculum in terms of biogas production and volatile solid (VS) reduction. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of substrate to (POME) ratio used as inoculum on digester performance. The study was conducted in a 10-L lab-scale bioreactor operated at thermophilic (53oC) temperature. The result from the study showed that anaerobic digestion of cattle manure with POME inoculum can be done successfully in batch and semi-continuous mode. Biogas production was observed to commence immediately and the POME inoculum shown a strong influence on the initial biogas production rate. Average biogas yield was estimated to be about 0.346 and 0.299 m3 kg-1 VS added for the CM(5) : POME(1.5) and CM(5) : POME(1) respectively. However, nearly similar chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of 33% and 30% with volatile solids (VS) removal of 58.6% and 52% for the CM(5):P0ME(1.5) and CM(5):POME(1), respectively was achieved. These results are hopeful for the treatment of cattle wastes and POME mass available in Malaysia

Vegetation Monitoring Using UAV: A Preliminary Study

Remote sensing using drone or UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) is the current trends and this technology can provide unrevealed life altering benefits to mankind. Drones are being used in many sectors such as for military, research, agricultural and recreational means. This technology not only can reduce the time of inspection, but it is also giving many benefits such as provides real-time live video for site inspection that can help user to analyze site logistic and speeding up the overall tasks. However, vegetation monitoring using remote sensing has its own challenges in terms of processing the captured image and data. Somehow, previous research has suggested a lot of different possible algorithm that could be used for post-processing the data gathered. Nevertheless, most of the algorithm requires a specific sensor in order to get the result. The objective of this paper is to identify and verify the algorithm that is suitable to process the vegetation image. This research will use the data gathered from various area by using consumer camera and process by using Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI) indices. Finally, this research will observe the accuracy of the result analyzed using the VARI and identify the characteristic of the algorithm