Etiology Profile of Lower Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Background: Lower gastrointestinal bleeding (LGIB) is still a significant health problem since the unknown etiology had not existed until now. Similar condition occurs at Adam Malik Hospital. No data about the etiology of LGIB has been defined. Therefore, this study was aimed to recognize the etiology profile of LGIB at Adam Malik Hospital, Medan. Method: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted on medical records of patients who had undergone lower gastrointestinal tract endoscopy (colonoscopy) at Adam Malik Hospital, Medan between January 2009 and December 2010 based on their complaint of hematochezia. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 19. The data was categorized based on subjects' age, sex and etiology of their hematochezia. Results: There were 116 patients consisted of 61 (52.6%) males and 55 (47.4%) females with mean age of 50.52 (17-84) years. The colonoscopy revealed 52 (44.7%) cases of hemorrhoidal varices, 17 (14.7%) cases of rectal carcinoma, 17 (14.7%) normal endoscopic results, 8 (6.9%) cases of sigmoid carcinoma, 8 (6.9%) of proctitis, 6 (5.1%) cases of colitis, 4 (3.5%) cases of colon carcinoma, and 4 (3.5%) cases of rectosigmoid carcinoma. Conclusion: This study found that hemorrhoidal varices is the most common etiology of LGIB

Peranan Pemimpin Lokal dalam Meningkatkan Kemampuan Kelompok (Kasus Kelompok Tani di Desa Pulo Kencana Kecamatan Pontang Kabupaten Serang)

Local leaders have a role as opinion leaders and development agencies in supporting the realization of a dynamic group in improving the ability of groups related to communication, motivation, to facilitating and social contacts, knowledge of groups and foster group experience. Rural communities still face problems, especially individuals that have not been able to develop itself in enhancing the ability of the group through the role of local leaders. The purpose of this study is to identify the role of local leaders in improving the ability of a group. This research was conducted in the village of Pulo Kencana, helter subdistrict, Serang regency. The number of respondents was 45 respondents with tree of farmer groups. The results showed that the role of local leaders in improving the ability of the group is high. This is due to the behavior on the actions of the leaders in facilitating the communication, increasing the motivation of group members and facilitating the group

User friendly system for the visually impaired in learning Al-Quran

This study presents a method to enable the visually impaired Muslim to learn and read the Al-Quran using Braille Display with software help. The system reads the database which contains all verses of Al-Quran and user will need to select the verse and ayah to read. Besides that, this system can be used in a class to teach visually impaired students to learn Al-Quran. Every word or character typed by the instructor in the main Braille Panel will be transmitted to the sub Braille Panel that is connected to the main Braille Panel. The selected verse of Al-Quran and ayah will also generate an index before being transmitted to the Braille Panel. The index will be transmitted to the Braille Display for people to touch and read the display. A user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) will be used to fulfill the ergonomics for the visually impaired user's physical capabilities. Several approaches are used to design and implement the interface for the visually impaired like speech or sound output and Braille display. The Braille codes can be displayed using the Braille panel. The design interface and structure of the system for the visually impaired users in learning Al-Quran is presented

High Voltage Durability of Bambusa Vulgaris as a Bio-composite Material

This study is conducted in order to measure and identify the ability of a bio-composite material to the high voltage. According to it, the developed bio-composite material is tested to ensure the maximum voltage that the material can hold. The bio-composite material which made from a mixture of Bambusa Vulgaris and a selected polymer named as High Density Polyethylene (HDPE). The Bambusa Vulgarisis going through several processes before mixed together with HDPE using wood plastic composite (WPC) technique which also consists of several stages. There are several samples of bio-composite substance are fabricated. The difference among them is the composition of the raw materials (Bambusa Vulgaris and HDPE) used. In this research, the high voltage measurement which also called as breakdown voltage measurement of the bio-composite material is examined by using appropriate experiments. All the experimental results are presented and discussed in this paper

Ionosphere: A Month Campaign over Sipitang and Parit Raja Stations, Malaysia

Ionospheric scintillations, which cause significant effects on satellite signals for communication and navigation, often takes place in equatorial region such as Malaysia. However, this disturbance are not fully understand due to few studies performed. This research reports the study and monitoring activity on Total Electron Content (TEC) and ionospheric scintillation in Malaysia using GPS measurements. Approach: One dual-frequency GPS receiver was positioned at the main station in Parit Raja, West Malaysia (1.86° N, 103.8° E) and Sipitang, East Malaysia (5.10° N, 115.56° E) respectively. Dual-frequency GPS data collected during the one-month ionospheric experimental campaign was used for TEC and scintillation computation and analysis. The TEC with 15 sec interval were computed from combined L1 and L2 code-pseudorange and carrier phase measurements. Whereas, the scintillation parameter S4 index was computed as a standard deviation of the received signal power normalized to average signal power every 60 sec on L1. A corrected S4 (without noise effects) was also computed and used in the analysis. Results: It was found that the daily maxima vTEC for Parit Raja (PR) ranged from 38-100 TECU, which is generally higher than those of Sipitang, which ranged from 30-42 TECU. However, a general consistency for both stations can be seen during the 1 month campaign period. Conclusions/Recommendations: In conclusion, these results show good agreement in the existence of the equatorial anomaly observed during moderate solar flux conditions and undisturbed geomagnetic condition. This will contributes to the knowledge of equatorial ionosphere and help in space weather condition. However, to better understand and characterize the ionosphere over Malaysia, more campaigns should be encouraged

The curious case of large-N expansions on a (pseudo)sphere

We elucidate the large-N dynamics of one-dimensional sigma models with spherical and hyperbolic target spaces and find a duality between the Lagrange multiplier and the angular momentum. In the hyperbolic model we propose a new class of operators based on the irreducible representations of hyperbolic space. We also uncover unexpected zero modes which lead to the double scaling of the 1/N expansion and explore these modes using Gelfand-Dikiy equations.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Oral cancer secretome: Identification of cancer-associated proteins

This study aims to identify cancer-associated proteins in the secretome of oral cancer cell lines. We have successfully established four primary cell cultures of normal cells with a limited lifespan without human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) immortalization. The secretome of these primary cell cultures were compared with that of oral cancer cell lines using 2DE. Thirty five protein spots were found to have changed in abundance. Unambiguous identification of these proteins was achieved by MALDI TOF/TOF. In silico analysis predicted that 24 of these proteins were secreted via classical or nonclassical mechanisms. The mRNA expression of six genes was found to correlate with the corresponding protein abundance. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) core analysis revealed that the identified proteins were relevant in, and related to, cancer development with likely involvements in tumor growth, metastasis, hyperproliferation, tumorigenesis, neoplasia, hyperplasia, and cell transformation. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that a comparative study of the secretome of cancer versus normal cell lines can be used to identify cancer-associated proteins.Article Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/elps.201300126/abstrac

Microcontroller Implementation for Automatic Smart Bell

This study aims to design automatic school bell hardware based on the ATmega32 microcontroller, design automatic school bell software based on the ATmega32 microcontroller using Basic programming language, and test the performance of the automatic school bell based on the ATmega32 microcontroller. This automatic school bell uses a minimum system of ATmega32 microcontrollers which equipped with data input from the push button, LCD to display character output, ISD2560 to output sound, and a timer taken from DS1307 RTC. This research is a Research or Development (R & D) research. This research is carried out through two stages of design. The first stage is the stage of hardware design. The second stage is the stage of software design. Programs are made using the Basic programming language using the Bascom-AVR application. The results of the product were tested using the black box method with two stages. In the first stage, software testing uses a series of simulations on the Proteus 7 Professional application. The second stage, testing hardware

Development of hybrid coconut shell-peek adsorbent for methane adsorption: optimization using response surface methodology

Adsorbed natural gas (ANG) provides efficient and clean combustion, with minimal emissions compared to diesel and gasoline. This article was designed to develop techniques of ANG for transportation application by apply RSM and CCD to identify the optimum preparation conditions for preparation of stable adsorbent for methane adsorption. Coconut shell and poly ether ketone (PEEK) was selected for synthesis of activated carbon (AC). The effectiveness of the parameters was determined using response surface method (RSM) couple with central composite design (CCD). The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to identify the significant parameters. The quadratic model was adopted, as it has the highest F-value of 21.62 and P-value of less than 0.05, which relate the parameters and response. Microwave power has the highest F-value of 62.36. The maximum methane uptake of 5.12mmol g-1 was achieved. Overall, the hybrid coconut-PEEK adsorbent was found to be suitable for CH4 adsorption