The effectiveness of the creativity trigger module in achieving higher levels of creative thinking among prospective teachers

The unoptimised level of creative thinking is seen as an issue among Semester 8 prospective teachers in Malaysian Teacher-Education Institutes (IPG). This could impede their teaching of creative thinking as one of the four components of 21st century skills in schools. In relation to this, this study sets out to investigate prior creativity levels of IPG prospective teachers and develop the Creativity Trigger Module (CTM) as a training module for enhancing their creativity. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) was used to compare the prior creativity levels of four respondent groups and test the effectiveness of the CTM on five dimensions of figural creativity, namely fluency, originality, elaboration, resistance to premature closure, abstractness of titles, and their overall creativity. A two-stage cluster sampling technique identified two IPGs with 68 respondents in the state of Johor namely, IPG-Kampus Tun Hussein Onn, Batu Pahat (IPGKTHO) as the control group site (34 respondents), and IPG- Kampus Temenggong Ibrahim, Johor Bahru (IPGKTI) as the treatment group site (34 respondents). Mathematics (MT) and Design and Technology (RBT) are the only two specialist subject combinations that provided enough sample size at both test sites. A quasi-experimental research design was used and this involved intact classes. Data analysis was carried out as follows: ANOVA, ANCOVA, and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test analysis for TTCT scores while data analysis based on the NVivo software was used for the focus group interviews. Findings on prior creativity levels showed average or low creativity levels among all 4 test groups with IPGKTHO and RBT options having significantly higher posttest marks as compared to IPGKTI and MT option respectively. The CTM was found to improve significantly respondents’ posttest marks for the treatment group in all the five dimensions of figural creativity and, their overall creativity. Feedback from respondents revealed positive support for the CTM. In conclusion, the prior creativity of IPG prospective teachers was at an unoptimised level before treatment but the CTM has been successfully developed as an effective resource for enhancing the creative thinking levels among IPG prospective teachers

Facilitating torrance test of creative thinking use in Malaysian TVET research: the initial step of inter-rater reliability determination

Creativity is a valuable 21st century attribute, vital to innovation, and is considered as an important aspect in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). This study is prompted by the lack of international test use in Malaysian TVET creativity-related research where the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), translated into the Malay Language (ML) could fill in this gap. The determination of inter-rater reliability coefficients cover five norm-referenced dimensions or measures of figural creativity, viz. fluency, originality, elaboration, resistance to premature closure, abstractness of titles, and the overall average score for the TTCT (Form A). This study involves correlation research where subjective answers to TTCT (ML) by 35 prospective teachers from a Teacher Education Institute - Temenggong Ibrahim Campus, Johor Baharu were marked by 3 independent raters, and subsequently analysed for correlations. Data analyses of IRC were carried out using interclass correlation analysis found in the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. Excellent IRC values were obtained as follows: Fluency (.99), Originality (.99), Elaboration (.90), Resistance to Premature Closure (.93), Abstractness of Titles (.98), and overall average score (.99), with r≥.9. The IRC values obtained for the TTCT (ML) version are consistent with values obtained for the English (international) TTCT version, viz. r, from.78 to.99. In conclusion, the TTCT (ML) version is valid and reliable data collection instrument for research on creativity, innovation or higher-order thinking skills involving TVET respondents whose mother tongue is Malay

A review on underutilized tropical fruits in Malaysia

Some non commercial seasonal and wild tropical fruits in Malaysia are less popular and sometimes grown locally for consumption and medicinal purposes. Their potential for rich polyphenolic compounds, carotenoids, anthocyanins, fatty acids, minerals, and amino acids is yet to be explored by the scientists. Malaysia has a rich diversity of tropical fruits which includes common, ornamental, rare, wild and highland fruits, but most of the indigenous fruits are considered to be underutilized. Typical underutilized fruits available in Malaysia are Asam, Bacang, Bambangan, Cerapu, Durian, Jambu, Kuini, Pulasan and Salak. These underutilized fruits are classified into 3 categories: species with potential for commercial development which mainly include Ara (Ficus sp.), Asam Gelugor (Garcinia atroviridis), Cempedak (Artocarpus integer), Ceri (Lepisanthes alata), Durian Hutan (Durio sp.), Kedondong/great hog plum (Spondias cytherea), Nangka/jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophullus), Pinang (Areca catechu), Pulasan (Nephelium ramboutan-ake), Salak (Salacca zalacca) and Sukun/breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis); species with possible development potential for local uses include Averrhoe bilimbi, Baccaurea motteyana, Baccaurea macrocrpa, Cynometra cauliflora, Dialum indum, Durio kutejensis, Garcinia hombroiniana, Garcinia parvifolia, Mangifera feotida, Phyllanthus emblica, Syzygium jambos; and species without current development potential for economic uses include Asam Kelubi (Salacca conferta), Bidara/Indian jujube (Zizyphus mauritiana), Jentik-Jentik (Baccaurea polyneura), Kundang (Garcinia parvifolia), Lengeng (Pometia sp.), Mertajam (Lepisanthes rubiginosa), Remia (Bouea microphylla), Sapote (Pouteria campechiana) and Sentol (Sandoricum koetjape). At present, the research on underutilized fruits is in nascent stage. There is definitely a need to make these fruits more popular and commonly available. Therefore, promotional campaign by government and private organizations for consumption of these underutilized fruits is need of the present time. Further studies are required to exploit their nutritional composition, antioxidant capability and therapeutic properties

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

Multiancestry analysis of the HLA locus in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases uncovers a shared adaptive immune response mediated by HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes

Across multiancestry groups, we analyzed Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) associations in over 176,000 individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) versus controls. We demonstrate that the two diseases share the same protective association at the HLA locus. HLA-specific fine-mapping showed that hierarchical protective effects of HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes best accounted for the association, strongest with HLA-DRB1*04:04 and HLA-DRB1*04:07, and intermediary with HLA-DRB1*04:01 and HLA-DRB1*04:03. The same signal was associated with decreased neurofibrillary tangles in postmortem brains and was associated with reduced tau levels in cerebrospinal fluid and to a lower extent with increased Aβ42. Protective HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes strongly bound the aggregation-prone tau PHF6 sequence, however only when acetylated at a lysine (K311), a common posttranslational modification central to tau aggregation. An HLA-DRB1*04-mediated adaptive immune response decreases PD and AD risks, potentially by acting against tau, offering the possibility of therapeutic avenues

Evaluation of novel Parkinson's disease candidate genes in the Chinese population

Recent whole-exome sequencing studies in European patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have identified potential risk variants across 33 novel PD candidate genes. We aim to determine if these reported candidate genes are similarly implicated in Asians by assessing common, rare, and novel nonsynonymous coding variants by sequencing all 33 genes in 198 Chinese samples and genotyping coding variants in an independent set of 9756 Chinese samples. We carried out further targeted sequencing of CD36 in an additional 576 Chinese and Korean samples. We found that only 8 of 43 reported risk variants were polymorphic in our Chinese samples. We identified several heterozygotes for rare loss-of-function mutations, including the reported CD36 p.Gln74Ter variant, in both cases and controls. We also observed 2 potential compound heterozygotes among PD cases for rare loss-of-function mutations in CD36 and SSPO. The other reported variants were common in East Asians and not associated with PD, completely absent, or only found in controls. Therefore, the 33 reported candidate genes and associated variants are unlikely to confer significant PD risk in the East Asian population.NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore)ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)NMRC (Natl Medical Research Council, S’pore)Accepted versio

Genome-wide association study of Parkinson’s disease in East Asians

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on Parkinson’s disease (PD) have mostly been done in Europeans and Japanese. No study has been done in Han Chinese, which make up nearly a fifth of the world population. We conducted the first Han Chinese GWAS analysing a total of 22,729 subjects (5,125 PD cases and 17,604 controls) from Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Korea, mainland China and Taiwan. We performed imputation, merging and logistic regression analyses of 2,402,394 SNPs passing quality control filters in 779 PD cases, 13,227 controls, adjusted for the first three principal components. 90 SNPs with association P  1.45) on PD risk. Our results also demonstrate some differences in the genetic contribution to PD between Europeans and Asians. Further pan-ethnic meta-analysis with European GWAS cohorts may unravel new PD loci.NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore)ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)NMRC (Natl Medical Research Council, S’pore)Accepted versio