Nest site selection and digging attempts of green turtles (Chelonia mydas, family Cheloniidae) at Pantai Kerachut and Telok Kampi, Penang Island, Peninsular Malaysia

The Pantai Kerachut Turtle Conservation Centre represents the centre of research study of sea turtles in Penang Island. For the study of nest site selection, 37 nests were located between 10-40m from the high tide line at Pantai Kerachut than at the same distance (10-40 m) from high tide line at Telok Kampi. It is believed that 3 nests were located at a distance of 0-10m from the high tide line because the location is near to the water’s edge and the sand which is exposed to high relative humidity (1.6-1.7%) is unsuitable for Green Turtles Chelonia mydas to lay eggs. At locations beyond 40 m from the high tide line, the sand is too dry (30-31ºC) and the low relative humidity (0.6-0.7%) makes it unsuitable for turtles to dig nests. For the study of nest site selection in relation to vegetation zone, more nests were distributed within the vegetation zone at both beaches. Green Turtles prefer to land and nest within the vegetation of Merambong (Scaevola taccada) due to the shelter, protection, and dark environment. At the open beach, Green Turtles are exposed to disturbance from feral dogs, while grass areas provide less shelter than Merambong trees

English for Art Communication to Enhance Quality Programs

AbstractEnglish-medium instruction has become a common approach to increase the international isation opportunities of academic institutions. This article presents the results of a survey (N=80) and a focus group discussion to identify students’ attitudes toward specialized English for art, and their experiences and challenges regarding English-medium education. The findings showed that communication and understanding were the challenges that concern the nonnative students in the focused international institution. The study also indicated that senior students have higher awareness of their need for specialized English than freshmen. The paper confirms the significance of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction for students and recommends an on-going communication and academic writing courses to contribute to the quality of international art communication

Support Vector Machine with Theta-Beta Band Power Features Generated from Writing of Dyslexic Children

The classification of dyslexia using EEGrequires the detection of subtle differences between groups of children in an environment that are known to be noisy and full of artifacts. It is thus necessary for the feature extraction to improve the classification. The normal and poor dyslexic are found to activate similar areas on the left hemisphere during reading and writing. With only a single feature vector of beta activation, it is difficult to distinguish the difference between the two groups. Our work here aims to examine the classification performance of normal, poor and capable dyslexic with theta-beta band power ratio as an alternative feature vector. EEG signals were recorded from 33 subjects (11 normal, 11 poor and 11 capable dyslexics) during tasks of reading and writing words and non-words. 8 electrode locations (C3, C4, FC5, FC6, P3, P4, T7, T8) on the learning pathway and hypothesized compensatory pathway in capable dyslexic were applied. Theta and beta band power features were extracted using Daubechies, Symlets and Coiflets mother wavelet function with different orders. These are then served as inputs to linear and RBF kernel SVM classifier, where performance is measured by Area Under Curve(AUC) of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) graph. Result shows the highest average AUC is 0.8668 for linear SVM with features extracted from Symlets of order 2, while 0.9838 for RBF kernel SVM with features extracted from Daubechies of order 6. From boxplot, the normal subjects are found to have a lower theta-beta ratio of 2.5:1, as compared to that of poor and capable dyslexic, ranging between 3 to 5, for all the electrodes

Cataloger mentoring a survey of catalogers' perception on mentoring for skills development in academic libraries / M. A. Bello and Y. Mansor

Library services in digital age have become user self-exploration while the geometrical growth in information resources continued to task bibliographic control especially catalogers whose task is not only to provide efficient, and effective bibliographic control but in addition timely access to all resources. However, the Cataloguers' skills, knowledge and strength continued to dwindle in past decades that have generated concern to the profession worldwide. Decline in education, unsatisfactory learning/training infrastructure and lowly attitude to cataloguing courses by educators and students alike in Nigeria further eroded skill development and proficiency. Consequently, the cataloguers are short of skills needed to perform their duties. This in turn may affect library services provision. This study therefore seeks to discern what cataloguers across university libraries in Nigeria perceived of mentoring for skill development and critical role of mentoring for proficient cataloguing skill. The study investigates 1. The state of mentoring in academic libraries of Nigerian Universities, 2. The perception of catalogers on mentoring for cataloging skill development. The research question is specifically directed, at 1. What is the state of mentoring in academic libraries of Nigerian universities? a) Do Nigerian university libraries have mentoring programs for catalogers? b) What types of mentoring programs is available and how adequate and effective is the programs? 2. What is the perception of catalogers on mentoring? 3. What is the perception of catalogers on mentoring for cataloging skill development? The study adopted descriptive survey method. With the use of questionnaire, fifty cataloguers were sampled from five Nigerian public university libraries in five of the six geopolitical zones of the country. The survey conducted in November/December, 2009 used a five-point likert-scale questionnaire for data collection. From the total sample size, only 35 responses representing 70 percent was found useable for analysis. Findings revealed that cataloger uses three types of mentoring programs Supervisory (81%), Situational (19%) and Group (13%) mentoring. Ninety-four (94%) percent of the respondents felt mentoring enhances their descriptive cataloguing skills and the confidence to used work tools. While another 97% felt mentoring could be use for succession plans and as stability factor in term of changes. The catalogers perceived mentoring as vital tool for skill development, considered it to have organizational benefits and agreed mentoring can be use to address the challenges of skill deficiency for improvement in the profession

Temporal and Spatial Variations in Fish Assemblage Structures in Relation to the Physicochemical Parameters of the Merbok Estuary, Kedah

The effects of seven variables–rainfall, water depth, salinity, turbidity, temperature, conductivity and pH–on fish assemblages were evaluated in this study. Fish were sampled on a monthly basis using a barrier net deployed by artisanal fishermen at six physicochemical sampling stations. The Merbok estuary was influenced by variable river discharges and mainly affected by primary and secondary wet seasons in March–June and August–November, respectively. This impacted the salinity gradient which ranged from 3.50 ppt to almost 30.75 ppt, resulted in two different salinity regimes, i.e. mesohaline and polyhaline. The temperature varied with a pronounced peak in both the primary and secondary rainy seasons. Other parameters such as conductivity, turbidity and pH fluctuated temporally, but no significant differences were recorded among the sampling sites. Fish species accounted for 72.06% (897.9 g/b/t), while marine and freshwater shrimps accounted for 27.94% (350.7 g/b/t). Almost 80 species of fish, representatives of 45 genera from 36 were recorded in the present study. Temporally, the mean abundance of fish was lower during the primary wet season than during the secondary rainy periods while spatially, the mean abundance of fish species was higher in the middle zone of the estuarine systems. The correlations between species and variables, suggesting the importance of environmental parameters in determining fish distribution, abundance and assemblage. Some fish species such as Butis gymnopomus showed a strong correlation with turbidity and pH, whereas others such as Lates calcarifer were strongly correlated with salinity. Key words: physicochemical, estuarine fishery, resource management, Merbok estuar

EVALUATION OF THE IMMUNE RESPONSE TO POLIO VACCINE IN MALNOURISHED CHILDREN IN SANA'A CITY

Objective: This study was made to evaluate the immune response to polio virus vaccine among PEM children by measuring the level of circulating Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against polio virus (IgG-PV) after immunization with the primary series of POV, and determining the coverage rate of universal childhood vaccine for polio virus. A cross-sectional laboratory study was conducted in Department of Medical Microbiology and Clinical Immunology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Al-Sabeen University Hospital, Sana’a University. Methods: A total of 279 PEM children were selected and investigated for universal childhood vaccination coverage rate for polio vaccine. Blood samples were collected from all, then tested for levels of IgG-PV by ELISA method. For assessment IgG-PV levels more than 10 units/ml were considered protected against polio virus infection. Results: The coverage rate of polio virus vaccine for first year vaccine was 96.8%; and 91.1% of vaccinated PEM children responded to the vaccine with mean level of 46.2 U/ml. A statistically significant difference was observed with respect to sero-protective IgG-PV between males and females (85.7% and 94.1% respectively, p=0.002); and older children (>37 months) (97.7%). Conclusion: We conclude that a small proportion of malnourished vaccinated children with a normal immune status were not serologically immune to polio virus infection, and remain to be reconsidered for either revaccination or booster doses due to lack of or inadequate response. PEM group gave slightly reduced response to OPV hence there is need to give this group IPV (injectable polio vaccine) along with OPV and different micro-nutrition deficiencies like Zinc and iron. Peer Review History: Received 29 March 2018;   Revised 20 April; Accepted 7 May, Available online 15 May 2018 UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file:        Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 4.5/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 8.0/10 Reviewer(s) detail: Dr. O.J Owolabi, University of Benin, Nigeria, [email protected] Dr. Sameh Abdelmoneem Mohammed Ali, Faculty of Pharmacy, Beni-Suef University, Egypt, [email protected] Similar Articles: COCCIDIAN INTESTINAL PARASITES AMONG CHILDREN IN AL-TORBAH CITY IN YEMEN: IN COUNTRY WITH HIGH INCIDENCE OF MALNUTRITION PREVALENCE AND POTENTIAL RISK FACTORS OF HEPATITIS B VIRUS IN A SAMPLE OF CHILDREN IN TWO SELECTED AREAS IN YEME

Effects of elevated temperature on high performance concrete incorporating of metakaolin and garnet

Durability has become one of the major indicators to dictate a good quality of concrete. Rapid growing in construction leads to the demand of high strength concrete which can bear high stress and high resistance towards any hazard and harsh environment thus providing a safe structure. High performance concrete (HPC) has been identified as one of the advanced types of concrete that can fulfill the criteria. Hence, in this study resistance towards elevated temperature of HPC incorporating 10% of metakaolin as part of cementitious material and 50% of garnet as part of replacement of fine aggregates were investigated. Samples of HPC with metakaolin and garnet (HPCMG) and HPC with metakaolin (HPCM) were exposed to different heating temperature of 200°C, 400°C, 600°C and 800°C for duration of one hour. The changes of physical in color and the appearances of cracks in all samples were closely observed. In addition, compressive strength tests according to BS1881-116:1983 and percentage of weight loss for all the samples were also monitored in this study. Results showed that as the temperature increased, significance losses of compressive strength were detected for both HPCMG and HPCM. At the temperature of 800°C, HPCMG degenerated 86.8% of its strength compared to 71.8% for HPCM. As temperature increased, weight loss of HPCM indicated higher reading compared to HPCMG. Major changes of the physical appearances were also detected in both HPCM and HPCGM samples such as cracks and increment in gap width on the samples. This summarized that HPCM has better fire resistance compared to HPCMG

Reconstruction of Cortical and Cancellous Bone in Tibia with Osteogenesis Imperfecta

Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) is the bone fragility disorder that leads to long bone bowing. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has become the tool of choice to assess behaviour structural within bones. Currently, the FEA performed on the tibia is based on the bone constructed without considering different components of the bone, where the bone was created as a single material. In an attempt to further investigate the bone with OI, the present study was conducted to investigate the mechanical stress distribution using finite element model of the OI affected tibia. The model was reconstructed from the CT images composed of cortical and cancellous bones obtained from Osirix database. The segmentation of the cortical and cancellous of the tibia was performed on 346 images using two different methods which are global thresholding and the selection of the binary object. The segmented images were used to develop a three-dimensional model of the tibia using VOXELCON software. The boundary conditions were set to the meshed model in preparation for the finite element analysis using the same software. Displacements ranging from 5 mm to 35 mm were assigned to a point in between the proximal and distal of the tibia model. In the coronal plane, the highest stress levels were recorded on the medial side of the cortical bone, whereas in the sagittal plane, the highest stress levels were recorded on the anterior side of the cortical bone when the model was subjected to 35 mm displacement. The cancellous bone, however, showed lower stress levels on both planes when subjected to similar displacement. With each increment of displacement, the model experienced more stress and caused the higher percentage volume of individual cortical and cancellous that exceed critical stress of 115 MPa. There were no significant differences in the percentage volume of voxels affected between the cortical and cancellous bones for both coronal and sagittal planes with the pvalue of 0.29 and 0.32 respectively (p > 0.05). There was no significant difference obtained for the percentage volume of voxels affected between the coronal and sagittal planes with the p-value is 0.13 (p > 0.05)