Kesediaan guru bahasa melayu menengah rendah menjalankan pengajaran dan pembelajaran di rumah (PdPr) penulisan karangan

Pengajaran dan pembelajaran di rumah (PdPr) secara dalam talian telah menggantikan pembelajaran secara bersemuka ketika Covid-19. Justeru, kajian ini dijalankan untuk mengenal pasti kesediaan guru dan penglibatan serta penerimaan mereka terhadap pembelajaran penulisan karangan Bahasa Melayu secara dalam talian sepanjang tempoh Perintah Kawalan Pergerakan (PKP). Seramai 149 guru Bahasa Melayu Menengah Rendah di Kedah telah dipilih sebagai responden menggunakan kaedah persampelan rawak bertujuan. Kajian menggunakan instrumen soal selidik yang mengandungi item dan terbahagi kepada empat konstruk, iaitu kesediaan guru, penerimaan murid, penglibatan murid dan penilaian. Statistik deskriptif dan frekuensi digunakan untuk menganalisis data soal selidik. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa guru-guru mata pelajaran Bahasa Melayu menengah rendah bersedia dalam pengajaran penulisan karangan Bahasa Melayu secara dalam talian semasa tempoh PKP. Hasil dapatan juga mendapati guru-guru berhadapan dengan masalah penglibatan dan pemahaman murid-murid dalam proses pengajaran penulisan karangan Bahasa Melayu secara dalam talian. PdPr penulisan karangan akan membuahkan hasil yang memuaskan sekiranya murid-murid dapat memberikan kerjasama dan melibatkan diri secara aktif tanpa memberikan alasan. Murid-murid harus diberikan galakan dan dorongan oleh pebagai pihak sama ada dari segi moral ataupun material agar PdPr memberi manfaat kepada murid-murid

Vaccine hesitancy toward the COVID-19 vaccine among the Malaysian population

COVID-19 is a potentially fatal infectious disease that requires effective vaccines to keep the outbreak under control. Despite the ongoing efforts for an effective vaccine, public hesitancy towards vaccines is now one of the main concerns to the global health in containing this global pandemic. Thus, this preliminary study was carried out to assess the degree of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among the general public in Malaysia and to identify the underlying reasons for their hesitancy by using 5C psychological antecedents of vaccination. This study was conducted by carrying out a cross-sectional online survey for approximately two months between January to February 2021, involving 385 participants. The survey contained questions based on the 5C model proffered by WHO. The data from the survey were analyzed using Smart PLS 3 for statistical analysis, with the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). According to the findings, only 62.5 percent out of the 385 participants had planned to get the COVID-19 vaccine, while the remaining 37.5 percent did not. The results also showed that confidence, calculation, collective responsibility, and constraints had a significant influence on vaccine hesitancy but not complacency. There is a degree of vaccine hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccines among the Malaysian population, although the data that we have obtained cannot be used to generalize for the entire Malaysian population due to the small sample size. Thus, for the vaccination campaign to be more effective, it should focus more on addressing the issue relating to confidence, calculation, collective responsibility, and constraints and less on complacency

Association of maternal and cord plasma total, free and bioavailable 25-hyrodroxyvitamin D with neonatal anthropometric measurements at birth: a preliminary study in a private hospital

Introduction: 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) is the principal biomarker of vitamin D status. In circulation, 25OHD is primarily bound to vitamin D binding protein (VDBP), leaving a small proportion bound to albumin and as free form. Previous studies have suggested that free 25OHD is better correlated with health outcomes. However, in pregnancy where VDBP level is extremely elevated, the correlations between free 25OHD with health outcomes are far from conclusive. Here we show the associations of maternal and cord total, free and bioavailable 25OHD con-currently with neonatal anthropometric measurements in healthy pregnant mothers-neonates pairs. Method: Total 25OHD level was measured by using chemiluminescent immunoassay. Free and bioavailable 25OHD were calculated using published mathematical models. Results: The results showed that birth weight and head circumference were negatively associated with maternal total 25OHD but not significantly associated with free and bioavailable 25OHD. There were no significant associations between cord total, free and bioavailable 25OHD with any of the neonatal anthropometric measurements. Conclusion: The outcomes of this study should encourage further research in a larger sample size. Notably, future research could lead to the establishment of causative relationships and plausible mechanisms between maternal and cord 25OHD with neonatal anthropometric measurements

Ursolic acid inhibits colistin efflux and curtails colistin resistant Enterobacteriaceae

Abstract Colistin resistance in Enterobacteriaceae especially Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli is driving the evolution of pan drug resistant strains. Screening a library of 13 plant nutraceuticals led to the identification of acetyl shikonin and ursolic acid, which exhibited synergy with colistin against extremely drug resistant (XDR) clinical strains of E. coli (U3790) and K. pneumoniae (BC936). Ursolic acid caused a significant colistin MIC reversal of 16-fold in U3790 and 4-fold in BC936 strains. Ursolic acid also potentiated the bactericidal effect of colistin against both U3790 and BC936 by causing ~ 4 to 4.5 log fold decline in CFU of both clinical isolates in a time kill assay. At 2× minimum effective concentration, ursolic acid was non-toxic to zebrafish as evidenced by brain and liver enzyme profiles and by histopathology studies. In combination with colistin, ursolic acid reduced bacterial bioburden of U3790/BC936 by 1–1.58 log fold from the infected muscle tissue of zebrafish. Mechanistic explorations via studies on real time efflux, membrane potential and intracellular accumulation of dansyl chloride tagged colistin revealed that colistin efflux is inhibited by ursolic acid. In addition, ursolic acid also enhanced outer membrane permeability which probably facilitates colistin’s attack on outer and inner membranes. Our study shows that ursolic acid synergizes with colistin by inhibiting colistin efflux in Enterobacteriaceae that helps to curtail colistin resistant Enterobacteriaceae.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148135/1/13568_2019_Article_750.pd

Influence of vitamin D binding protein polymorphism, demographics and lifestyle factors on vitamin D status of healthy Malaysian pregnant women

Background: Vitamin D deficiency (VDD) has been related to vitamin D binding protein (GC) gene polymorphism, demographics and lifestyle factors in different populations. However, previous studies only focused on demographic and lifestyle factors or genetic factors alone. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aimed to assess the association between GC gene polymorphism, demographics and lifestyle factors with VDD among Malaysian pregnant women. Method: Information on demographic characteristics, dietary vitamin D intake from supplement and food, time spent outdoors, skin type and clothing were collected using a questionnaire. Plasma total 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) levels were measured using an Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC). Maternal GC single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs4588 and rs7041) were determined using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) technique. Results: Results showed that 50.2% of pregnant women were vitamin D deficient (25OHD < 30 nmol/L). VDD (25OHD < 30 nmol/L) was significantly associated with age, veiled clothing, maternal vitamin D intakes from both food and supplements, and GC rs7041(and GC diplotypes). In contrast to previous studies that reported for non-pregnant population, a significant positive association was found between CC genotype for SNP GC rs7041, GC 1s-1s and GC If-2 with risk of VDD (25OHD < 30 nmol/L). Conclusions: The high prevalence of maternal VDD found in this study suggests the need for urgent development and implementation of vitamin D supplementation or fortification strategies to reduce VDD among pregnant women. The discrepancy in the association between GC rs7041 gene polymorphism and VDD reflects the variation in the factors associated with VDD in pregnancy compared to non-pregnant state

Genetic variants and non-genetic factors associated with a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in full-term neonates in Malaysia

A high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency has been reported in Malaysian pregnant women, indicating that neonates at birth are at increased risk of vitamin D deficiency. Factors including low dietary vitamin D intake and single nucleotide polymorphisms in the vitamin D metabolism genes have been associated with this deficiency in the population. However, there was limited data available regarding the prevalence of neonatal vitamin D deficiency and the factors associated with it among neonates in Malaysia. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and explore the associations between maternal and neonatal gene polymorphisms, as well as non-genetic factors and neonatal vitamin D deficiency. A total of 217 mother-neonate dyads were recruited for this study. Data on skin type, maternal sun exposure, dietary intake, as well as maternal and neonatal 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) concentrations were collected. Maternal and neonatal vitamin D Receptor (VDR) SNP (rs2228570) and Group-specific component (GC) SNPs (rs4588 and rs7041) genotypes were determined using high-resolution melting (HRM) and restriction fragment length polymorphism, respectively. The results showed that 60.4%, 71.4% and 95.4% of neonates had cord blood 25OHD levels below 25 nmol/L, 30 nmol/L and 50 nmol/L, respectively. After adjusting for the maternal vitamin D status, the maternal VDR rs2228570 GG genotype was significantly associated with neonatal vitamin D deficiency (25OHD<30 nmol/L) (aOR = 2.63, 95% CI: 1.18–5.87, p = 0.018). Maternal vitamin D supplement intake was found to be a protective factor. However, maternal and neonatal vitamin D binding protein (VDBP) SNPs were not associated with neonatal vitamin D deficiency. The high prevalence of neonatal vitamin D deficiency reported in this study indicates the urgent need for the development and implementation of strategies to improve neonatal vitamin D status. The findings suggest that maternal supplementation may be an effective approach to enhance the vitamin D status of neonates

Controversies over Infective Endocarditis Prophylaxis and the need for National Guidelines

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a relatively rare but invariably fatal disease if left untreated. Over decades, individuals with certain congenital or acquired heart defects were given antibiotic prophylaxis before certain procedures to prevent IE. However, controversies on this regimen have begun to grow since 2002 and in 2007-2008, three major international health organizations, the American Heart Association (AHA), the European Society for Cardiology (ESC), and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), UK published have their revised guidelines where AHA and ESC markedly shortened the list of indications for IE prophylaxis and NICE abandoned the concept of IE prophylaxis altogether. This has literally divided not only the medical practitioners around the world but practitioners within countries who used to follow either AHA, ESC or NHS guidelines in absence of their own national guidelines. This chaotic situation has also affected the medical teaching in those countries because of contradictory teaching from teachers having different views and belongingness on this issue. Even follow up review five years after the introduction of revised guidelines has failed to resolve the controversies and it deems un resolvable in near future. In such circumstances, every country needs to have own guideline for uniform medical teaching and practice

Identification of critical paralog groups with indispensable roles in the regulation of signaling flow

Extensive cross-talk between signaling pathways is required to integrate the myriad of extracellular signal combinations at the cellular level. Gene duplication events may lead to the emergence of novel functions, leaving groups of similar genes - termed paralogs - in the genome. To distinguish critical paralog groups (CPGs) from other paralogs in human signaling networks, we developed a signaling network-based method using cross-talk annotation and tissue-specific signaling flow analysis. 75 CPGs were found with higher degree, betweenness centrality, closeness, and ‘bowtieness’ when compared to other paralogs or other proteins in the signaling network. CPGs had higher diversity in all these measures, with more varied biological functions and more specific post-transcriptional regulation than non-critical paralog groups (non-CPG). Using TGF-beta, Notch and MAPK pathways as examples, SMAD2/3, NOTCH1/2/3 and MEK3/6-p38 CPGs were found to regulate the signaling flow of their respective pathways. Additionally, CPGs showed a higher mutation rate in both inherited diseases and cancer, and were enriched in drug targets. In conclusion, the results revealed two distinct types of paralog groups in the signaling network: CPGs and non-CPGs. Thus highlighting the importance of CPGs as compared to non-CPGs in drug discovery and disease pathogenesis

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio