Managing A Change: Case History of a Bumiputera Entrepreneur

This study seeks to understand what an individual did, in the entrepreneurial processes that he underwent, when he entered the world of entrepreneurship. Specifically, the objectives were 1) to identify the processes in the individual's entrepreneurship development, 2) to know how the entrepreneur handle the changes in his entrepreneurial life, and 3) to identify the profile of the entrepreneur. The life period of the Bumiputera understudied covered the time prior to his leaving the salaried job until his business venture became profitable. A historical case study design was utilised. Three in-depth interviews of the informant were made and a two month field observation of the informant was done. All the interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. The daily observations were recorded. The data were then inductively analysed

In Vitro Evaluations and In Vivo Toxicity and Efficacy Studies of MFM501 against MRSA

Previously we have discovered a synthetically derived pyrrolidone alkaloid, MFM501, exhibiting good inhibitory activity against 53 MRSA and MSSA isolates with low cytotoxicity against three normal cell-lines with IC50 values at >625 µg/ml. Time-kill assay, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, in vivo oral acute toxicity test, and mice peritonitis model were carried out in this study. In the time-kill study, MFM501 showed a less than 3 log10 decrease in bacterial colony concentration value (CFU/ml) which represented a bacteriostatic action while displaying a time-dependent inhibitory mechanism. Following that, SEM analysis suggested that MFM501 may exert its inhibitory activity via cytoplasmic membrane disruption. Moreover, MFM501 showed no toxicity effect on treated mice at an estimated median acute lethal dose (LD50) value of more than 300 mg/kg and less than 2000 mg/kg. For the efficacy test, a mean effective dose (ED50) of 87.16 mg/kg was obtained via a single dose oral administration. Our data demonstrated that MFM501 has the potential to be developed further as a new, safe, and effective oral-delivered antibacterial agent against MRSA isolates