The criteria for evaluating method and evidence on radiation health effects in epidemiological study: a review

This paper purpose is to assess whether the distance of base station plays a causal role leading to health problem. This research mostly focuses on participants around telecommunication base stations by assessing their symptoms and level of the incident of occurrence of pains and discomfort. It is important to rule out all the criteria and causality from cause and outcome in radiation health effects through epidemiological study. The major causal criteria to follow are criteria of biological plausibility, consistency, temporality and specificity of alternative explanations. True EMR value also should be determined to support the survey collection. Previous studies mostly have been performed were limited to the questionnaire survey and often burdened by the subjectivism-related error. The evidence for public health intervention must be sufficiently comprehensive to cover the complexity in epidemiological studies.Keywords: base stations; electromagnetic radiation (EMR); health effect; questionnair

Selected Malaysia air quality pollutants assessment using chemometrics techniques

Air quality played an important role as polluted air quality could harm human health, environment as well as property. Thus, a study of air quality pollutants assessment using chemometrics was performed with the objectives to ensure the air quality data analysis is valid, acceptable and interpreted well. Analysis of PCA, FA, KMO and Bartlett’s test were done on five main air quality pollutants (O3, NO2, SO2, CO and PM10) from all around Malaysia. From the data analysis obtained, the concentrations of air quality pollutants all around Malaysia starting from 2008 to 2011 were acceptable and the most dominant major pollutants had been highlighted. KMO obtained in this study is 0.7760, which show that the results are factor well. While, Bartlett’s test shows that the variables correlated to each other’s. From these tests, air quality data were acceptable for factor analysis.Keywords: air pollution; chemometrics; PCA; F

Establishing reliability of performance indicator of sepak takraw using notational analysis

The aim of this study is to establish the necessary reliability in the notational analysis of sepak takraw. Two performance analysts were recruited to help in the collection of the data. The performances  were  analyzed based  on  the  main performance  indicators  relevant  to  the demand of the game. Cronbach’s alpha and Cohen’s kappa reliability testing was implemented to test the reliability of the information collected. The results for reliability shows [α = 0.91 and K = 0.89 (0.092, 95%), p < 0.05] respectively, which confirmed the reliability of the information  collected  from the  analysis.  This  paper  has revealed  that  reliability  in  the notational analysis could be achieved. Performance analysts should ensure the reliability of their analysis before being relayed to the coach.Keywords: sepak takraw; performance indicators; notational analysis; reliabilit

Assessment of water quality status using univariate analysis at Klang and Juru River, Malaysia

Klang River and Juru River which today suffers from water quality probllems resulting from anthropogenic and geomorphology factors. The purpose of this study was to assess the water quality status from 2009 until 2013. 10 monitoring stations covering along Klang River and Juru River were selected. Six water quality parameters analyzed based on in-situ and ex-situ analysis were carried out according to the univariate analysis to obtain WQI level. The result indicated the impact of various anthropogenic and geomorphology activities contributed higher values of BOD, COD, SS and NH3-NL but the TSS concentration contamination at Juru River still on stable condition. Downstream and middle stream more polluted than upstream area triggered by pollutants from waste products of development activities, which inclusion of a high amount of pollutants of Klang River and Juru River.Keywords: water quality; univariate analysis; national water quality standards (NWQS); anthropogeni

Development of android application for computation of air pollutant index and water quality index

Past few decades, human have experienced a revolution in the computer sciences, not only in terms of its ability but also in terms of its use. Advancement of smartphone technology had produced rapid yet incredible invention in many sectors such as construction, agriculture, education, health and many more. This paper will discuss about the development of the application that is used to calculate the API and WQI indices. WQI and API calculator application was named as My.Index Calculator. The application can run on Android version 3.0 (Honeycomb) until the latest version of it (Lollipop). The application provides better alternatives to the index calculation and data management. Now, the researchers and students can calculate the index value at anytime and anywhere with the help of the application. In addition, it is way easier and faster to calculate the index.Keywords: water quality index; air pollutant index; programming; androi

Assessment of drinking water quality using principal component analysis and partial least square discriminant analysis: a case study at water treatment plants, Selangor

This study characterizes the drinking water quality on 28 water treatmentt plants in Selangor from 2009 to 2012 using multivariate techniques. The objectives of this study are to analyze the quality of collected drinking water and to detect the source of pollution for the most revealing  parameters.  The  Partial  Least  Square  Discriminant  Analysis (PLS-DA)  model showed a high correlation matrix of analysis for physicochemical quality of two types of water with  99.43% significant  value.  The classification  matrix  accuracy of the principal component  analysis  (PCA) highlighted  13  significant  physico-chemical water quality parameters and 14 significant heavy metal parameters. PCA was carried out to identify the origin and source of pollution of each water quality parameters. Therefore, this study proves that chemometric method is the principle way to characterize the drinking water quality.Keywords: partial least square, discriminant analysis; principal component analysis; drinking water qualit

Non-ionizing radiation as threat in daily life

Electromagnetic field (EMF) is a field of combination between electric and magnetic field. While electromagnetic radiation (EMR) can be divided into ionizing and non-ionizing radiation (NIR). This article review of published scientific studies about NIR and its effect on the human body. From this review, it is found that NIR gives effect towards the human body if it is exposed towards NIR in long time exposure. NIR also creates a thermal effect in long time exposure. This paper tends to create awareness for public that non-ionizing radiation provide an adverse effect towards public since its source is within our everyday life. For future study, we suggest for a policy to be applied in Malaysia as a basic guideline for EMR exposure and an implementation of mapping for EMR exposure at East and West of Malaysia to create an easiness for future researcher do a research in the EMR field study.Keywords: electromagnetic field radiation; non-ionizing radiation; EM

Combating substance abuse with the potential of geographic information system combining multivariate analysis

Substance abuse problems have been a growing concern for people from all over the world. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of a combination between a geographic information system and a multivariate analysis in substance abuse research. However, due to the limited studies on a combination of both these methods in the substance abuse field, we review some other studies in various fields indicating the potential of this method in future substance abuse studies. As the expertise of GIS lies in spatial analysis and the multivariate analysis lies in analyzing huge data thus being capable of interpreting the results very well, we hope this method will attract researchers to applying it in their studies and can consequently and indirectly help in combating substance abuse problems.Keywords: substance abuse; geographic information system; multivariate analysis;  spatial analysis; comba

Intelligent Prediction of Soccer Technical Skill on Youth Soccer Player’s Relative Performance Using Multivariate Analysis and Artificial Neural Network Techniques

This study aims to predict the potential pattern of soccer technical skill on Malaysia youth soccer players relative performance using multivariate analysis and artificial neural network techniques. 184 male youth soccer players were recruited in Malaysia soccer academy (average age = 15.2±2.0) underwent to, physical fitness test, anthropometric, maturity, motivation and the level of skill related soccer. Unsupervised pattern recognition of principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify the most significant parameters in soccer for the current study and intelligent prediction of artificial neural network (ANN) was developed to determine its predictive ability for the soccer relative performance index (SRPI). The PCA has indicated sit up, agility, 5m speed, 10m speed, 20m speed, weight, height, sitting height, bicep, tricep, subscapular, suprailiac, calf circumference, maturity, task, ego, short pass, shooting right top corner and shooting left top corner are the most significant parameters in soccer. Meanwhile, the PCA-ANN showed better predictive ability in the determination of SRPI with fewer parameters such as R2 and root mean square error (RMSE) values of 0.922 and 0.190, respectively. The current study indicated that only a few parameters are needed to improve and enhanced the performance of novice group. Nevertheless, the prediction method techniques for the present study show very high and strong ability in prediction of the player’s performance. It has highlighted the possibility of defining the optimum number of parameters for the player's relative performance evaluation, which in turn will reduce the costs, energy and time of the measurement

Status of population, occupation and seasonal habitat displacement of alien bird species in West Java Tropical Forest, Indonesia

“Invasive Species” is defined as an alien species that is non-native (non-indigenous, foreign or exotic) to a particular ecosystem. Commonly, they are intentionally or unintentionally introduced into an ecosystem. It is suspected that the discovery of a population of Finch-billed Myna in the forest of West Java resulted from the indirect influence of the bird trade. This bird is one of the endemic birds in Indonesia. Commonly, the Finch-billed Myna is a resident bird in Sulawesi islands. However, we found them in Tangkuban Parahu Mount, West Java. The population of Finch-billed Myna in Tangkuban Parahu Mount is 17-24 individual of three group colonies. The occupation areas are Abria, Awi leuga and Manggu. The vegetation density is higher than Myna’s former habitat (0,055 ind/m2) and Myna’s recent habitat (0,028 ind/m2).Keyword: Alien species; Finch-billed Myna; population; habitat; resource