Important criteria for measuring heritage building condition

The excellence condition of a heritage building lies not only in the appearance of its individual elements, but also in the integrity of all its components, considered as unique criteria of the specific construction technology of its time and place. However, these criteria are varied and not specific. Therefore, this study aimed to identify and rank the important criteria for measuring the condition of heritage buildings in Malaysia. Data obtained through questionnaire and analyzed using Average Index (AI) in order to establish the important criteria. Samples were selected from a panel of experts in the field of heritage buildings management including industry players and academicians. The established criteria will be used as components to develop a new method of heritage building condition determination model in Malaysia

Glucose utilization of mucuna bracteata sap by saccharomyces cerevisiae in fermentation process

The usage of cover crops has been increase popularity in the agricultural community. A cover crop is a crop planted mainly to manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agro ecosystem. Besides these advantages, cover crops also have disadvantages. Firstly, in order to terminate the crop, the cost that needed was too high. Next, it can also reduce soil moisture, increased risk of plant disease and increased risk of the pest population. Exceeded cover crops also can increase competition between the cash crops in order to get nutrients [1]. In order to overcome this problem, a research was conducted to study about cover crops as a new biomass source to produce something valuable

Traffic waiting time management using fuzzy logic approach

The significant increase in the number of vehicles has become a major problem, that causes enormous problems such as congestion, pollution, and the wasting of money and time. Therefore, the simulating and optimizing traffic control algorithms are needed to accommodate the demand in order to solve traffic congestion problems. Predicting effective and optimal green time taken for the intersections will help minimizing the traffic congestion henceforth reducing the waiting time. In this study, fuzzy logic is used to find optimal traffic waiting time. The method determines the effective and optimal traffic signal timing that suits different traffic densities. In this case, the study has considered a four-way intersection. The results indicate that different road intersections require different effective and optimal of green time to reduce traffic congestion. The higher the number of cars at the intersection, the effective green time will be longer rather than the lesser number of cars. The flexibility feature of the fuzzy logic will provide suitable optimal green time for the intersection, which is cordially benefit the users. It is worth mentioning that fuzzy logic traffic lights controller performed better than the fixed-time controller due to its flexibility and the capability in reducing the waiting time

A Study of the Antioxidant Effect of Alpha Lipoic Acids on Sperm Quality

OBJECTIVE: Assisted reproductive techniques are useful in helping infertile couples achieve successful conception. Initial studies have shown that sperm cryopreservation, one step in assisted reproduction, causes a dramatic reduction in sperm quality. This has been attributed to, among other things, free radical activities. The aim of the present study was to minimize this oxidative attack by adding an antioxidant into the sperm microenvironment. Alpha lipoic acids were selected for this purpose for their efficient free radical scavenging properties and solubility in lipid and aqueous phases. METHODS: For this investigation, semen from six Boer bucks was pooled. Seminal analysis of the baseline prior to incubation of samples with different concentrations of Alpha lipoic acids (0.00625, 0.0125, 0.025, 0.05, 0.1 mmol/ml) was performed, and post-seminal analysis was conducted after a one-hour incubation. The comet assay was used to observe the effect of Alpha lipoic acids on sperm DNA integrity. Statistical analysis using an unpaired t-test with a significance level of p<0.05 was then performed. RESULTS: Our results indicate that the sperm motility rate was improved after incubation with Alpha lipoic acids at a concentration of 0.02 mmol/ml. This concentration was also capable of reducing DNA damage. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, Alpha lipoic acids renders cryoprotection to sperm, thereby improving sperm quality

Review on food insecurity and its relationship with iron and vitamin B12 status among children

Iron and vitamin B12 are essential micronutrients needed for the growth and development of children. Iron is critical for erythropoiesis, notably in haemoglobin synthesis whereby haemoglobin transports oxygen to cells, which is essential for cellular metabolism and energy production. Meanwhile, vitamin B12 is required for deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis, intracellular metabolism, and blood cells formation and maturation. Lack of these essential micronutrients can lead to nutritional deficiency and anaemia, especially among children. Food insecurity is a condition where there is a lack of or uncertain availability of acquiring acceptable food. Food insecurity is associated with lower nutrient intake and micronutrient deficiencies including iron and vitamin B12, which can subsequently lead to poor health outcomes. Various determinants are associated with iron and vitamin B12 deficiency, and food insecurity, such as socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and dietary intake. This review will explore the possible relationship between iron, vitamin B12, and anaemia with food insecurity among children

A Preliminary Study on Understanding the Consumptions of Therapeutic Essential Oils During Covid-19 Pandemic Among Adults Using ANN

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the significance of utilizing essential oils (EO) as one of the holistic ways of supporting and enhancing health. As a consequence of growing knowledge of connected health concerns, people all over the world are looking for natural ways to avoid different ailments. It has been proven that excellent health and psychological awareness increase the human body's immune response, therefore boosting disease resistance. Essential oils are derived in a number of ways from valued plants containing active chemicals with medicinal qualities. In Malaysia, many have used EO in their daily lives. This paper identifies the hierarchy of importance among factors which contribute towards the usage frequency of essential oils in Malaysia using an artificial neural network. Two-layer neural network (NN) models have been applied, which are multilayer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF). Based on the analysis done, RBF-NN performed the best with SSE=4.436 and RE=0.548. It can be concluded that, based on sensitivity analysis, the top five factors toward usage frequency are consumption, age, external use, clinic visit, and occasion, with normalized importance of 100%, 90.8%, 89.3%, 68.2%, and 42.2% respectively

Impact of strategic leadership on organizational performance, strategic orientation and operational strategy

This paper focuses on the impact of strategic leadership on operational strategy and organizational performance of the automobile industry in Malaysia with a particular focus on Proton (Perusahaan Otomobil Malaysia). Since the mid-1980s a growing body of research on leadership has focused on strategic leadership, in contrast to managerial and visionary leadership. It has focused on how lead-ers make decisions in the short term that guarantees long-term viability of the organization. Senior leaders also have the ability to align human resources in an effective way directly to the business strategy. This article focuses on how national car manufacturer, Proton, exercises strategic leadership to influence its operational strategy and performance. It examines both dependent and inde-pendent variables that influence on strategic leadership with implications for future research

Understanding sustainability: an exploration of the is literature

Government all over the world are increasingly realizing that implementing and sustaining their electronic service delivery is the way forward to achieve efficiency savings and to satisfy and engage demanding constituents. Once an electronic service delivery has been developed and the infrastructure is in place, they are almost infinitely scalable with minimal effort, and will reduce variable costs of electronic service provisioning and service use. As this trend continues, academics, IT professionals and decision makers need a deeper understanding of electronic service initiatives sustainability. Yet, analysis of IS academic literature reveals that electronic service initiatives sustainability, has received little in depth attention. This paper investigates the current state of electronic service initiatives sustainability research in IS literature. The article detailed out a review of literature from main IS journals. The study concludes with a tentative operational definition, a list of source references, and an agenda for related future research

Julat rujukan bagi jumlah homosisteina dalam plasma di kalangan kanak-kanak di Malaysia

Homosisteinemia merupakan salah satu penyakit kepincangan metabolisme terwaris (IEM) yang menyebabkan peningkatan paras homosisteina. Homosisteina adalah salah satu asid amino mengandungi sulfur yang mempunyai kumpulan thiol yang dibentuk hasil daripada proses demetilasi asid amino methionina. Dalam penyakit kepincangan metabolisme terwaris (inborn errors of metabolism – IEM), terdapat tujuh jenis penyakit berpunca daripada kekurangan enzim yang terlibat dalam metabolisme homosisteina. Paras jumlah homosisteina adalah berbeza mengikut jenis penyakit akibat kekurangan enzim ini. Maka, terdapat keperluan bagi mewujudkan suatu julat rujukan untuk membezakan antara populasi normal dengan populasi berpenyakit. Kajian ini menerangkan penemuan berkenaan julat rujukan bagi jumlah homosisteina di kalangan kanak-kanak di Malaysia. Sebanyak 3 ml darah telah diambil daripada 86 individu normal (52 orang kanak-kanak lelaki dan 34 orang kanak-kanak perempuan) dan seterusnya diproses serta dianalisis menggunakan kaedah kromatografi cecair berprestasi tinggi jenis fasa penukar ion (HPLC-IEC). Hasil kajian mendapati min jumlah homosisteina bagi keseluruhan populasi rujukan ialah sebanyak 8.1 ± 3.89 μM (95% selang keyakinan 7.3-8.9 μM). Julat rujukan sedia ada bagi populasi rujukan adalah sebanyak 2.5 – 16.2 μM dengan had pemutus terendah (lower cut-off) dan had pemutus teratas (upper cut-off) masing-masing adalah 1.0 μM dan 21.0 μM. Julat tersebut didapati agak tinggi berbanding dengan penyelidik luar. Penemuan julat rujukan bagi jumlah homosisteina untuk populasi kanak-kanak di Malaysia yang terbaru ini dapat mengurangkan jumlah kadar positif palsu semasa proses diagnosis penyakit dilakukan