The Impact of Supervisory Inputs on Postgraduate Students

Pengawasan telah menjadi isu utama dalam studi di sekolah pascasarjana. Pengawasan dapat didefinisikan sebagai hubungan orang per orang secara intensif dan interpersonal. Pengawas dirancang untuk dapat memfasilitasi perkembangan akademik mahasiswa baik terkait dengan tugas maupun penelitian mereka. Paper ini menunjukkan betapa kompleksnya bidang pengawasan terhadap mahasiswa, yang dipengaruhi oleh banyak faktor, di antaranya latar belakang sosial, kepribadian pengawas dan mahasiswa, hubungan yang berkembang di antara mereka, keahlian pengawas, dan masalah-masalah yang dihadapi oleh para mahasiswa. Paper ini mendiskusikan pentingnya input-input kepengawasan dalam proses pengawasan, dan juga meneropong hakikat interaksi sosial antara pengawas dengan mahasiswa. Sasaran yang dituju dalam paper ini adalah untuk mengembangkan pengawasan yang efektif terhadap mahasiswa sekolah pascasarjana guna menghasilkan modal sumber daya manusia yang unggul. Kata kunci : pengawasan, mahasiswa pascasarjana, input kepengawasan, dan pengawasan efekti

Computational Investigation of Structure-Function Relationship in Fluorine-Functionalized MOFs for PFOA Capture from Water

A strategy that can be used to develop metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to capture per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from water is functionalizing them with fluorine moieties. We investigated different fluorine-functionalization strategies and their performance in removing PFAS from water using molecular simulations. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), one of the most widely encountered PFAS in water sources, was used as the probe molecule. Our simulations show that fluorine functionalization by incorporating fluorinated anions as bridging ligands in MOFs creates additional binding sites for PFOA; however, the same sites also attract water molecules, which casts doubt on their potential use. In contrast, trifluoromethyl or fluorine substitution of the MOF ligands results in higher hydrophobicity. However, the pores fluorinated with this method should have the optimum size to accommodate PFOA. Likewise, post-synthetic fluorine functionalization of MOFs through grafting of perfluorinated alkanes showed increased PFOA affinity. Fluorine-functionalized MOFs with high hydrophobicity and optimized pore sizes can effectively capture PFOA from water at very low concentrations of PFOA

A clinicopathologic study of mediastinal lesions with special emphasis on thymomas

Background: Mediastinal masses are relatively uncommon lesions that sometimes pose an interesting diagnostic and therapeutic problem for the clinician. Thymomas are one of the common mediastinal neoplasms and exhibit a wide spectrum of morphologic features and an unrivalled frequency of other autoimmune diseases. The great morphologic variability and heterogeneity in thymomas has rendered their histological classification difficult and highly controversial.Methods: This retrospective and descriptive study on  thymoma was done in the department of pathology, Kasturba Medical College Mangalore (Manipal University), India over a period of five years from January 2006 to June 2011. Histopathology sections taken were stained with routine Hematoxylin and Eosin stains in every case. Additional stains and immunohistochemistry were done as required.Results: Total number of mediastinal lesions studied was 66, with thymomas making up 15 cases. The age range of patients with thymomas was 22 to 65 years with a mean of 48 years. The most common histologic sub-type of thymoma was B2. Type AB thymoma was associated with bad prognosis. Five cases of thymomas were associated with Myasthenia Gravis. All thymomas showed cytokeratin positivity. Reticulin fibers were seen around individual tumor cells in Type A thymoma while Type B2 showed around tumor nests.Conclusion: Thymomas are rare & interesting neoplasm located in the mediastinum. A histomorphological analysis aided by immunohistochemistry and radiology permits an exact diagnosis and also allows for differentiation between benign and malignant neoplasms.

Effects of feeding angles and cutting speeds of a mower knife with serrated edges on the pulverization of sweet potato vines

A study was conducted to test the effects of three different speeds of 1830, 2066 and 2440 rpm of a mower knife with serrated edges and two different feeding angles of 45° and 90° on the pulverization of sweet potato vines. The results indicated that all the treatments were significant at 99% significance level for the pulverized percentage of sweet potato vines remaining on the sieve. The best result was for the 45° feeding angle with lowest vine pulverized percentage of 47.20%. The second speed of 2066 rpm had the finest vine pulverized percentage of 57.47%. The best performance for overlapping effect between feeding angle and speed of mower was achieved by the 45° feeding angle and a mower speed of 1830 rpm resulting in an average percentage of 44.45 % of pulverized vines

Tools and concepts of journey towards a natural capitalism with special reference to environmental impact assessment, life cycle assessment and industrial ecology.

The evolution of tool applications and approaches for industrial-environmentally related management systems in minimizing their impact on natural environment has facilitated the concept of journey to natural capitalism, notably, on physical flows and the accumulation of substances and materials due to industrial activities. These environmental management tools include risk assessment, resource accounting, costbenefit analysis, environmental impact statement, and environmental impact assessment. In addition, environmental management system (EMS) series of standards derived fromSociety of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and International Standard of Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 207 initiatives emphasizing on EMS, environmental auditing, life cycle assessment, ecolabeling, environmental performance evaluation, design for environment and climate change. Recent concept on industrial ecology (IE) was introduced and applied respectively into EMS for industrial sustainability. It is based on the integration of human dimension, industrial processes, and environmental concerns that perpetually mimics natural ecosystem processes. This paper describes how these theoretical frameworks of Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools being developed and applied and subsequently used as central tenet in IE concept in meeting their objectives that indirectly could be further enhanced the journey towards natural capitalism

A Pilot Study on the Quality of Life in Family Caregivers of Cancer Patients at an Urban Tertiary Hospital in Kuala Lumpur

Background: Family plays an important role in caregiving of cancer patients. There are limited published articles on cancer caregiving in the Malaysian population. The aim of the study was to determine the quality of life (QoL) of cancer patient caregivers and its associated factors. Subjects and Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted at an urban tertiary hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A total of 94 family caregivers of all types of cancer patients completed validated questionnaires in the national language. The dependent variable was theQoL in family caregivers, which was measured by the Malay Caregiver Quality of Life–Cancer (MCQOL-C) questionnaire. It consisted of 35 items, and the domains are burden, positive adaptation, disruptiveness, financial concerns and others. The higher the QoL scores, the better the QoL. The independent variables were socio-demographic factors (age, education level, ethnicity, gender, marital status, relationship with patient, any children less than 18 years old, and employment status). The data were analyzed by a linear regression model. Results: The study population (N= 94) comprised of 73.4% females, 38.8% were spouses to cancer patients. The mean age was 45.02+14.65, ranged from 17-78 years old. Half (56.4%) of the study subjects were Malays, 54.3% obtained secondary education, and 50% were not working. The reliability of the questionnaire was good with Cronbach alpha= 0.87. The mean (SD) score of QoL was 80.57 (21.27), ranged from 25-128. The multivariate analysis showed that being non-Malay had lower quality of life than Malay (b= -18.40; 95% CI= 3.10 to 33.70; p= 0.020). Conclusion: Ethnicity affects the QoL of cancer patient caregiving. This provides invaluable insight for developing health care service. Keywords: quality of life, family caregiver, cance

GPU-based multiple back propagation for big data problems

The big data era has become known for its abundance in rapidly generated data of varying formats and sizes. With this awareness, interest in data analytics and more specifically predictive analytics has received increased attention lately. However, the massive sample sizes and high dimensionality peculiar with these datasets has challenged the overall performance of one of the most important components of predictive analytics of our present time, Machine Learning. Given that dimensionality reduction has been heavily applied to the problems of high dimensionality, this work presents an improved scheme of GPU based Multiple Back Propagation (MBP) with feature selection for big high dimensional data problems. Elastic Net was used for automatic feature selection of high dimensional biomedical datasets before classification with GPU based MBP and experimental results show an improved performance over the previous scheme with MBP

Effect of boric acid mixture as solid lubricant towards machining processes

Milling is widely used metal removal process in manufacturing industry that involves generation of high cutting forces and temperature. Lubricants become important to reduce the cutting force and temperature for better machining processes and performances. Conventional cutting fluid has some limitations. The applications of conventional cutting fluid create some techno-environmental problems like environmental pollution, biological problems to operators and water pollution. Application of solid lubricant in milling has proved to be a feasible alternative to the conventional cutting fluids. The present work investigates the effect of boric acid as solid lubricant towards machining performances such as tool wear and surface roughness. The results indicate that boric acid can improve the cutting processes and performance compared to conventional cutting fluid

Selection of classification models from repository of model for water quality dataset

This paper proposes a new technique, Model Selection Technique (MST) for selection andranking of models from the repository of models by combining three performance measures(Acc, TPR and TNR). This technique provides weightage to each performance measure to findthe most suitable model from the repository of models. A number of classification modelshave been generated to classify water quality using the most significant features andclassifiers such as J48, JRip and BayesNet. To validate this technique proposed, the waterquality dataset of Kinta River was used in this research. The results demonstrate that theFunction classifier is the optimal model with the most outstanding accuracy of 97.02%, TPR =0.96 and TNR = 0.98. In conclusion, MST is able to find the most relevant model from therepository of models by using weights in classifying the water quality dataset.Keywords: selection of models; water quality; classification model; models repository

Gastroprotective activity of Spirulina platensis in acetic acid and ethanol induced ulcers in rats

Objective: The effects of gastroprotective properties of Spirulina platensis was investigated in acetic acid and ethanol induced ulcers in rats. Methods: Administration of 2 and 4mg/kg Spirulina platensis extract for 7 days. After day 7, oral administration of either 80% (v/v) ethanol or 6% (v/v) acetic acid. Control rats received saline or anti-ulcer drug omeprazole (20 mg/kg) prior to ulcer induction. Results: The extract inhibited the mean lesion score of acetic acid, 4.333 to 3.000. Whereas, for ethanol induced ulcers, the extract reduced the lesion scoring from 2.833 to 1.677. However, this activity was statistically less potent than the anti-ulcer drug, omeprazole. Spirulina platensis alone did not induce any ulcers in rats. Conclusions: These results suggested that Spirulina platensis has gastroprotective activity against ulcers induced by acetic acid and ethanol