Negative Impact of Chemotherapy on Breast Cancer Patients QOL - Utility of Antiemetic Treatment Guidelines and the Role of Race.

Introduction: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is one of the most important worries of cancer patients. Although not life-threatening, it has a great negative impact on quality of life (QOL). Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the impact of CINV (i.e., acute and delayed) on breast cancer patients QOL and to discern opinions related with antiemetic guidelines used dependent on the three main races in Malaysia (Malay, Chinese, Indian). Methods: In this longitudinal prospective observational study, 158 breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy were interviewed and valid questionnaires (MANE and ONEM) were used to report the impact of CINV on their QOL within the first 24 hours and after 3 to 5 days of chemotherapy treatment. Results: The main result was that delayed CINV has an impact on QOL greater than acute CINV. The impact of nausea was reportedly higher than that of vomiting. Also differences in race i.e., genetic polymorphisms (pharmacogenomics) influenced the utility of antiemetic treatments and patients opinions. Conclusion: Based on the results of our study a new guideline for antiemetic treatment should be used to reduce the impact of CINV on QOL, taking into account variation in genetic polymorphisms among the three races in Malaysia

T-Test for visualizing frequently used Arabic words

The aim of visualizing the frequently used words is to solve the problem of reading comprehension. This is referring to the case of the non-Arabic speakers of the Muslim community, reading or reciting extensively an Arabic document (the Quran) without comprehension. This study outline an experiment testing whether there is any significant difference on the level of comprehension when images are used as part of the reading material of the Arabic text. It was found that using text only translation, resulted in no significant difference of the level of comprehension and the expected values. However, there is significant difference on the level of comprehension between Arabic text translation of the frequently used words and the text image of the frequently used word. © 2009 Asian Network for Scientific Information

Visualization systems supporting the reading of arabic document for non arabic speakers

This study addresses a reading comprehension problem and visualization as the suggested solution. When one read, one would intend to understand the text being read. It is absolutely an exception in the context of one Arabic document called the Quran. Thus, visualization techniques are then useful to support the understandability of the document for non-Arabic speakers such as the Malaysian and Indonesians. Descriptions and review of four prototype systems that use visualization techniques: scatter plot, trivariate plot, network diagrams, directory approach and hyperbolic. This study discusses reading and visualization theories, the problems encountered while reading the Arabic document (the Quran), comparative discussions on the prototype systems and functional requirement proposed to enhance the prototype. © 2009 Asian Network for Scientific Information

Parallel plot visualization for novice users

Parallel Plot for novice users is discussed. A relational model of parallel coordinate was used for analysis based on an interface called PaCQ. The advantage and disadvantages of parallel plot is discussed. Although through literatures it wasfound that parallel plot does not score well in graphical perceptibility among users, results shows that novice users can interpret parallel plots relatively well. The GOMS analysis of tasks related to parallel plot also shows that the time taken to complete tasks related to the parallel plot is relatively reasonable, well below 10s. The user study among novice with three different levels of education shows no significant difference in the scores of interpreting the parallel plot

Qur'anic words stemming

Arabic words are known to have complex morphological structure. The different structures produce various word patterns or derivatives from a root word. This paper attempts to identify various word patterns that originate from a root word. These word patterns are compared to the words in the 30th part of the Qur'an. Nine stemming test cases were outlined for words in the 30 th part of the Qur'an. Analysis showed that stemming nouns and particles leads to a lower percentage error compared to stemming the 10 alphabets that can be added as affixes in a root word. A rule-based stemming engine (RSE) was also implemented and the stemming accuracy achieved was 62.5 and the average time taken to stem 1000 word tokens was 11.7ms. The accuracy of the results was comparable to other stemming engines such as the Khoja stemmer, Buckwalter Morphological Analyzer (BAMA), Tri-literal Root Extraction (TRE) algorithm, and Voting algorithm

Retracted: Placement of combined photovoltaic and shunt capacitor to minimize power loss using heuristic quadratic curve fitting technique

This article was withdrawn and retracted by the Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences and has been removed from AJOL at the request of the journal Editor in Chief and the organisers of the conference at which the articles were presented (www.iccmit.net). Please address any queries to [email protected]

Effect of bio-based lubricant towards emissions and engine breakdown due to spark plug fouling in a two-stroke engine

Two-stroke also known as two-cycle gasoline engine is a spark ignition engine. Its uniqueness to the four-stroke engine is that this engine does not require lubricant sump, which makes construction lightweight and simple. Its lubricant is mixed with gasoline and burnt together during combustion. There are reports which stated that higher spark plug fouling is due to carbon deposition on the spark plug electrodes on a two-stroke engine when compared to the four-stroke. While many factors could have affected this situation, however, in this paper, the effect of mineral and bio-based lubricants towards carbon deposition and emissions are studied and reported. Idle, half and full throttle operation modes had been conducted on a two-stroke, 43 cubic centimeter engine. To keep combustion temperature below self-cleaning temperature on all three modes of operation, a zero-load test was utilized. This situation accelerates the deposition process as low temperature causes incomplete combustion. This could lead to the accumulation of char, unburned fuel, as well as condensed water and acids as the by-products blanket the spark plug electrodes and the exhaust system. Five samples had been prepared with a commercially available mineral lubricant (T0) as reference. Trimethylolpropane Trioleate, TMPTO derived from plant origin was used as the bio-based candidate. It was then mixed with T0 which created another four lubricant samples namely T10, T15, T20 and T50 with 10%, 15%, 20% and 50% TMPTO accordingly. Results show that mineral lubricant T0 delivers the lowest hydrocarbon HC, carbon monoxide CO and smoke opacity during idle and half throttle operations. However, it exhibits a greasy deposit on the spark plug circumference and dry carbon deposits on its insulator tip. T0 also emits a liquid residue at the exhaust manifold. T10 and T50 show a wet deposit blanketing both electrodes. Severe deposition was recorded by T50 that caused the engine to fail half way with its emissions had the worst recording. T15 and T20 exhibit only dry carbon deposition on the spark plug circumference. However, T20 has outperformed T15 in terms of emissions with lower CO and CO 2 emissions during idling and half-throttling. With better emissions than T15 and better carbon deposition than mineral (T0), T20 could be proposed to be used as a commercial two-stroke lubricant