Fear of failure and academic procrastination among university students: The role of achievement expectancy and year of study

This current study aimed to investigate whether expectancy-value model of achievement choice mediates the relationship between fear of failure (FOF) and academic procrastination (AP) among undergraduate students of Psychology Department at a private university in Malaysia. Based on the Krejcie-Morgan Table and G*Power, 102 undergraduate students (aged 18-24) who enrolled in core subjects were recruited to represent the population via snowball sampling method. PROCESS macro for SPSS was utilized to perform the Bootstrap analysis with 5,000 sampling at 95% confidence interval to test the mediation hypothesis. Results showed a significant positive total effect of FOF on AP and significant negative direct effect of expectancy-value model on academic procrastination, supporting the hypothesis for path c and path b. However, no significant direct effect was found between FOF and expectancy-value model (path a). Mediation did not occur, therefore FOF is still considered a robust and significant predictor of AP among the population of psychology students in the aforementioned university. Furthermore, our results suggested that the aforementioned link did not significantly occur among the first-year students

Analisis in silico peptida berasaskan epitop daripada protein-protein imunogen Burkholderia pseudomallei

Melioidosis is an infectious disease caused by the gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. This disease is associated with high human mortality rate, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. Rapid diagnosis is crucial in ensuring proper management and treatment of the disease with effective antibiotics. Currently, melioidosis diagnosis, bacterial culture is time consuming, difficult, and not sensitive, while IHA is hindered by high antibody background in healthy population and ELISA lacks standardization and is hindered by antigen inconsistency. To improve the current diagnosis method for melioidosis, this research aims to identify, screen, and develop epitope-spanning peptides to be used as standardized B. pseudomallei antigen in serodiagnosis of melioidosis. Peptides are favoured as they are more stable, and they offer effective and rapid antibody detection. Using in silico analysis, a pool of 154 B. pseudomallei proteins previously reported as immunogenic were screened and ranked based on their antigenicity, subcellular localization, stability, adhesive properties, and ability to interact with class I and class II major histocompatibility complex (MHC). The selected candidate from the analysis, BPSS0908 and BPSL2152 were then taken for further analysis to identify linear B-cell epitopes using several sequence-based B-cell epitope prediction tools. Consensus sequences that are confidently predicted by more than two prediction tools and are longer than 15 amino acids were then selected as linear B-cell epitopes. Through ELISA analysis, low sensitivity was demonstrated by the epitope-spanning peptides as compared to B. pseudomallei crude lysate. However, high specificity of 100% was observed for all tested peptides. The low sensitivity demonstrated by the peptides in ELISA could be due to lack of 3-dimensional structure which is needed for a stable antigen-antibody binding

Mobile based Automated Complete Blood Count (Auto-CBC) Analysis System from Blood Smeared Image

Blood cells diagnosis is becoming essential to ensure a proper treatment can be proposed to a blood related disease patient. In current research trending, automated complete blood count analysis system is required for pathologists or researchers to count the blood cells from the blood smeared images. Hence, a portable mobile-based complete blood count (CBC) analysis framework with the aid of microscope is proposed, and the smartphone camera is mounted to the viewing port of the light microscope by adding a smartphone support. Initially, the blood smeared image is acquired from a light microscope with objective zoom of 100X magnifications view the eyepiece zoom of 10X magnification, then captured by the smartphone camera. Next, the areas constitute to the WBC and RBC are extracted using combination of color space analysis, threshold and Otsu procedure. Then, the number of corresponding cells are counted using topological structural analysis, and the cells in clumped region is estimated using Hough Circle Transform (HCT) procedure. After that, the analysis results are saved in the database, and shown in the user interface of the smartphone application. Experimental results show the developed system can gain 92.93% accuracy for counting the RBC whereas 100% for counting the WBC

Surveillance of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Prescription in Singaporean Hospitals: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study

10.1371/journal.pone.0028751PLoS ONE612

4-[(2-Hy­droxy-5-nitro­benzyl­idene)amino]­benzene­sulfonamide

The title Schiff base compound, C13H11N3O5S, exists in an E configuration with respect to the C=N double bond. The benzene rings are almost coplanar, making a dihedral angle of 2.82 (6). The sulfonamide group is twisted away from the attached phenyl ring with an N—S—C—C torsion angle of 64.84 (11)°. An intra­molecular O—H⋯N hydrogen bond stabilizes the mol­ecule, generating an S(6) ring motif. In the crystal, inter­molecular N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules into a three-dimensional network

Replication and Meta-analysis of the Association between BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism and Cognitive Impairment in Patients Receiving Chemotherapy.

Cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) adversely affects cancer patients. We had previously demonstrated that the BDNF Val66Met genetic polymorphism is associated with lower odds of subjective CRCI in the multitasking and verbal ability domains among breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. To further assess our previous findings, we evaluated the association of BDNF Val66Met polymorphism with subjective and objective CRCI in a temporally separate cohort of patients and pooled findings from both the original (n = 145) and current (n = 193) cohorts in a meta-analysis. Subjective CRCI was assessed using FACT-Cog. Objective CRCI was evaluated using computerized neuropsychological tests. Genotyping was carried out using Sanger sequencing. The association of BDNF Val66Met genotypes and CRCI was examined with logistic regression. A fixed-effect meta-analysis was conducted using the inverse variance method. In the meta-analysis (n = 338), significantly lower odds of CRCI were associated with Met allele carriers based on the global FACT-Cog score (OR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.29-0.94). Furthermore, Met allele carriers were at lower odds of developing impairment in the domains of memory (OR = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.17-0.70), multitasking (OR = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.18-0.59), and verbal ability (OR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.24-0.88). Consistent with the previous study, lower odds of subjective CRCI among patients with the BDNF Met allele was observed after adjusting for potential confounders in the multitasking (OR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.14-0.67) domain. In conclusion, carriers of the BDNF Met allele were protected against global subjective CRCI, particularly in the domains of memory, multitasking, and verbal ability. Our findings further contribute to the understanding of CRCI pathophysiology