The cost of radiology procedures using Activity Based Costing (ABC) for development of cost weights in implementation of casemix system in Malaysia

Presently there is a gross lack of information on cost and cost weights in many developing countries that implement casemix system. Furthermore, studies that employed Activity Based Costing method (ABC) to estimate the costs of radiology procedures were rarely done in developing countries, including Malaysia. The main objective of this study is to determine the costs of radiology procedures for each group in casemix system, in order to develop cost weights to be used in the implementation of the casemix system. An economic evaluation study was conducted in all units in the Department of Radiology in the first teaching hospital using the casemix system in Malaysia. From the 25,754 cases, 16,173 (62.8%) of them were from medical discipline. Low One Third and High One Third (L3H3) method was employed to trim the outlier cases. Output from the trimming, 15,387 cases were included in the study. The results revealed that the total inpatients’ charges of all the radiology procedures was RM1,820,533.00 while the cost imputed using ABC method was RM2,970,505.54. The biggest cost component were human resources in Radiology Unit (Mobile) (57.5%), consumables (78.5%) of Endovascular Interventional Radiology (EIR) Unit, equipment (81.4%) of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Unit, reagents (68.1%) of Medical Nuclear Unit. The one highest radiology cost weight, was for Malaysia Diagnosis Related Group (MY-DRG®) B-4-11-II (Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Neoplasms with severity level II, 2.8301). The method of calculation of the cost of procedures need to be revised by the hospital as findings from this study showed that the cost imposed to patient is lower than the actual cost

Influence of Chemical Parameters on Artemia sp. (Crustacea: Anostraca) Population in Al Wathba Lake in the Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE

Long term monitoring programme on Brine shrimp (Artemia sp.) is being carried out by the Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (EAD) with the prime purpose of understanding the population dynamics, ecology and habitat requirements of Artemia at Al Wathba Lake, situated within Al Wathba Wetland Reserve, which is an artificial wetland near Abu Dhabi City. The present study, being a component of this programme, intends to understand the influence of chemical parameters such as dissolved oxygen, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, ammonia and total organic carbon on Artemia biomass and cyst production at different sites of the Al Wathba Lake. The study was carried out by sampling lake water quarterly for a period of 5 years from 2010 to 2014. The Artemia population was found to have direct impact of the above mentioned parameters on its abundance. The abundance was highest during the year 2010. Further, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrate and cadmium were found to be the most crucial parameters for production of Artemia. The study further aimed to determine the significant relationship between physico-chemical parameters and Artemia sp. population dynamics and cyst production

Optical domain service differentiation using spectral-amplitude-coding

We have implemented a new service differentiation technique in the optical domain using a spectral-amplitude-coding (SAC) variant of optical code division multiple access (OCDMA). The newly developed code, named KS (Khazani–Syed) is compared mathematically with other codes which use similar techniques. In our proposal, multiple weights are used to support ‘triple-play’ services (audio, video and data) with different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. The results characterizing the bit-error-rate (BER) with respect to the total number of active users show that KS offers a significantly improved performance over the previous reported techniques by accommodating additional 30 users with shorter code length and smaller code weight at BER of 10−9. In variable weight system, we have shown that KS codes with larger weight always have the best performance when other users of different weights are present in the system

A global threats overview for Numeniini populations: synthesising expert knowledge for a group of declining migratory birds

The Numeniini is a tribe of thirteen wader species (Scolopacidae, Charadriiformes) of which seven are near-threatened or globally threatened, including two critically endangered. To help inform conservation management and policy responses, we present the results of an expert assessment of the threats that members of this taxonomic group face across migratory flyways. Most threats are increasing in intensity, particularly in non-breeding areas, where habitat loss resulting from residential and commercial development, aquaculture, mining, transport, disturbance, problematic invasive species, pollution and climate change were regarded as having the greatest detrimental impact. Fewer threats (mining, disturbance, problematic native species and climate change) were identified as widely affecting breeding areas. Numeniini populations face the greatest number of non-breeding threats in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, especially those associated with coastal reclamation; related threats were also identified across the Central and Atlantic Americas, and East Atlantic flyways. Threats on the breeding grounds were greatest in Central and Atlantic Americas, East Atlantic and West Asian flyways. Three priority actions were associated with monitoring and research: to monitor breeding population trends (which for species breeding in remote areas may best be achieved through surveys at key non-breeding sites), to deploy tracking technologies to identify migratory connectivity, and to monitor land-cover change across breeding and non-breeding areas. Two priority actions were focused on conservation and policy responses: to identify and effectively protect key non-breeding sites across all flyways (particularly in the East Asian - Australasian Flyway), and to implement successful conservation interventions at a sufficient scale across human-dominated landscapes for species’ recovery to be achieved. If implemented urgently, these measures in combination have the potential to alter the current population declines of many Numeniini species and provide a template for the conservation of other groups of threatened species

Development of auditing in Malaysia: Legal, political and historical influences

This work investigates the role and contribution of external auditing as practised in the Malaysian society during the forty year period from independence in 1957 to just before the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.It applies the political economic theory introduced by Tinker (1980) and refined by Cooper & Sherer (1984), which focuses on the social relations aspects of professional activity rather than economic forces alone.In a case study format where qualitative data was gathered mainly from primary and secondary source materials, the study found that the function of auditing in the Malaysian society in most cases is devoid of any essence of mission; instead it is created, shaped and transformed by the pressures which give rise to its development over time.The largely insignificant role that it serves is intertwined within the contexts in which it operates

Sustainability performance model: a case study of pneumatic nipple hose connector

Sustainability concept was first introduced by Dr Harlem Brundtland in 1980’s promoting the need to preserve today’s mother nature for the sake of our future generations. There are three main evaluation criteria’s involved in sustainability approach namely economics, environmental and social. In consumer product manufacturing industry, the economics criteria are measured by consider the total manufacturing costs where it evaluates the economic sustainability of a company in a long term. The impact to the environment during manufacturing process can be used to measure the environment criteria. The social criteria are complicated to evaluate. But focusing at production line workers’ health who works at the production line can be used to evaluate the social criteria because it gives direct impact to their performance. In this paper, the sustainability concept is applied at the production line in the production of a pneumatic nipple hose connector. The evaluation criteria which has been considered are total manufacturing costs, environmental impact, ergonomics impact and also energy used for manufacturing. This study involves machine learning optimization by using neural network model which carried out in two stages. The first stage is to predict the results based on experimental works. The second stage is by using inversed neural network model to determine the optimum cutting parameters so that it can be used to manufacture the pneumatic nipple hose connector. Through these stages, optimization of the manufacturing procedures to produce pneumatic nipple hose connector already considered the criteria for sustainability

Reacting to headline news: Circumstances leading to causal explanations versus implicational concerns

10.1080/00207594.2010.516829International Journal of Psychology46163-7

ORIGINAL ARTICLE Prescribing Patterns and Drug Cost Among Cardiovascular Patients in Hospital Universiti

A prevalence study was conducted, measuring drug cost and prescribing patterns of clinicians treating cardiovascular patients in UKM Hospital (HUKM). One Hundred and thirtyfive patients ’ case-notes were selected from the Case-Mix database of HUKM. The average and median number of drugs prescribed per patient was 7.56 ( ± 3.37) and 7.0 ( ± 3) respectively. Generic drug prescription rate was still low (45.2%). Significant relationship was observed between generic drug prescriptions with age of patients, types of wards and different levels of clinicians ’ training. Younger patients, admitted to Coronary Care Unit (CCU) and Cardiology Rehabilitation Ward (CRW) were more likely to be prescribed with branded drugs. Lower generic drugs prescription and higher cost of drugs were mostly practised by Consultants. CCU and CRW wards were the only predictor to having low generic drugs prescriptions. Ninety-nine percent of the total RM28,879.25 drug cost was used to purchase branded drugs. Mean drug cost for a patient is RM213.92 ( ± RM333.36) and median cost is RM102.46 (± RM240.51). Higher drug cost and its ’ predictors were patients with severity level II and III, length of stay of ≥6 days, number of drugs types of ≥7, generic drugs prescription rate <50% and patients admitted in CCU and CRW wards. This study is important for short and long-term decision-making, controlling of providers behaviour and resources

Influence of Chemical Parameters on Artemia sp. (Crustacea: Anostraca) Population in Al Wathba Lake in the Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE

Long term monitoring programme on Brine shrimp (Artemia sp.) is being carried out by the Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (EAD) with the prime purpose of understanding the population dynamics, ecology and habitat requirements of Artemia at Al Wathba Lake, situated within Al Wathba Wetland Reserve, which is an artificial wetland near Abu Dhabi City. The present study, being a component of this programme, intends to understand the influence of chemical parameters such as dissolved oxygen, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, ammonia and total organic carbon on Artemia biomass and cyst production at different sites of the Al Wathba Lake. The study was carried out by sampling lake water quarterly for a period of 5 years from 2010 to 2014. The Artemia population was found to have direct impact of the above mentioned parameters on its abundance. The abundance was highest during the year 2010. Further, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrate and cadmium were found to be the most crucial parameters for production of Artemia. The study further aimed to determine the significant relationship between physico-chemical parameters and Artemia sp. population dynamics and cyst production