Epidemiological study of human intestinal parasites in Sarawak, East Malaysia: A review

Intestinal parasitic infections are endemic in rural settings and may account for asymptomatic infections to various health complications. These infections are a cause of concern for communities of lower economic status, especially in developing countries. In Sarawak, indigenous populations residing in geographically inaccessible areas are socially and economically disadvantaged. Through close association with nature, these populations are prone to intestinal parasitism. Currently, scattered information has led to a continual state of neglect at each level of parasitic infection control. This urges for a review of their distribution and transmission based on previous reports to understand the pattern of the diseases in the state which can further address the improvement of mass controlling programs. A literature search was conducted to collect previous reports on human intestinal parasites in Sarawak, East Malaysia from PubMed (Medline), SCOPUS, ScienceDirect and Web of Science from January 2019 to March 2021. Extrapolating the current data in Sarawak which is still considered limited, further interdisciplinary strategies are demanded to give insights in the epidemiology and true prevalence of intestinal parasites in Sarawak. This review addresses for redirection of attitude towards intestinal parasitic infections where it should be given with ample attention by rural populations. In tandem to that, improvement of rural livelihood such as standard of living and sanitation in Sarawak should be accredited as part of the efforts to reduce the number of intestinal parasitic infections in the state. As a control measure, mass deworming should be reconsidered especially to the rural populations

Spinless bosons embedded in a vector Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau oscillator

Some properties of minimal and nonminimal vector interactions in the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau (DKP) formalism are discussed. The conservation of the total angular momentum for spherically symmetric nonminimal potentials is derived from its commutation properties with each term of the DKP equation and the proper boundary conditions on the spinors are imposed. It is shown that the space component of the nonminimal vector potential plays a crucial role for the confinement of bosons. The exact solutions for the vector DKP oscillator (nonminimal vector coupling with a linear potential which exhibits an equally spaced energy spectrum in the weak-coupling limit) for spin-0 bosons are presented in a closed form and it is shown that the spectrum exhibits an accidental degeneracy

Petrography descriptions and U-Pb zircon datasets from the Archean Pavas Block, Precambrian of Uruguay

International audienceThis database is a geological and geochronological compilation made to study a small Archean/Paleoproterozoic block located in the centre of the Precambrian rock exposition of Uruguay. Petrographic and field outcrops data supporting the samples from which the zircons for textural analysis and U-Pb dating (LA-ICP-MS) come are presented at first with their descriptions. The first table (1) contains the new U-Pb isotopic data. The second table (2) presents a correlation of textures from different zircon samples. The last table (3) contains an inventory of different U-Pb ages found in antecedents. All these data are associated with the paper entitled: "The Archean Pavas Block in Uruguay: extension and tectonic evolution based on LA-ICP-MS U-Pb ages and airborne geophysics"

Detection of Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora Oocysts from Environmental Water for Drinking and Recreational Activities in Sarawak, Malaysia

Cryptosporidiosis and cyclosporiasis are caused by waterborne coccidian protozoan parasites of the genera Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora, respectively. This study was conducted to detect Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora oocysts from environmental water abstracted by drinking water treatment plants and recreational activities in Sarawak, Malaysia. Water samples (12 each) were collected from Sungai Sarawak Kanan in Bau and Sungai Sarawak Kiri in Batu Kitang, respectively. In addition, 6 water samples each were collected from Ranchan Recreational Park and UNIMAS Lake at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, respectively. Water physicochemical parameters were also recorded. All samples were concentrated by the iron sulfate flocculation method followed by the sucrose floatation technique. Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora were detected by modified Ziehl-Neelsen technique. Correlation of the parasites distribution with water physicochemical parameters was analysed using bivariate Pearson correlation. Based on the 24 total samples of environmental water abstracted by drinking water treatment plants, all the samples (24/24; 100%) were positive with Cryptosporidium, and only 2 samples (2/24; 8.33%) were positive with Cyclospora. Based on the 12 total samples of water for recreational activities, 4 samples (4/12; 33%) were positive with Cryptosporidium, while 2 samples (2/12; 17%) were positive with Cyclospora. Cryptosporidium oocysts were negatively correlated with dissolved oxygen (DO)

Magneto double-diffusive free convection inside a C-shaped nanofluid-filled enclosure including heat and solutal source block

In industry, double-diffusive convection has various and important technical applications. These applications include electronic apparatus cooling, drying processes, fuel cells, geothermal engineering, and thermal storage. We provide an entropy-thermal based analysis of magnetized Boussinesq-free double-diffusive convection engendered by internal heat and concentration source block in a nanofluid-filled C-shaped inclined confined space. Findings may be interpreted and assessed in terms of the leading variables such as Lewis number (Le = 2 to 8), Hartmann number (Ha= 0 to 20), buoyancy ratio (N = 1 to 3), and Rayleigh number (Ra = 105 and 106). Besides, to determine the effective geometry and good control of the phenomenon, the investigation also covered the system geometry parameters including the position of the concentration and heat source block (h/L = 0.2 to 0.8) and the inclination angle of the enclosure (δ = 0°–90°). We state that the mass and heat transfer rates increase with Ra, N, and δ while decreasing with Ha, Le, and h/L parameters. Furthermore, when Le, Ha, N, and δ increase, overall entropy increases, whereas it decreases as the h/L parameter increases