A case of cutaneous larva migrans acquired from soiled toilet floors in urban Kuala Lumpur

Despite being a common skin dermatosis in the tropics, physicians in the tropics may miss the diagnosis of cutaneous larva migrans for other pruritic skin manifestation. This is especially in those who live in urban housing with no history of travel. Cutaneous larva migrans, an intensely pruritic skin pathology is mainly contracted by people with history of beach holiday or contact with moist soft sand which had been contaminated with dog or cat faeces. This article reports a patient who presented with intensely itchy papular spots over the dorsum of his foot after walking barefooted in an urban toilet soiled with cat faeces. The patient had initially seen an urban general practitioner who diagnosed the papular skin lesion as an allergic reaction, and prescribed antihistamines. The patient subsequently developed creeping skin lesions and was seen by the author who prescribed albendazole 400 mg twice daily for three days. The patient reported reduction in itching after two days of albendazole treatment and a follow up at ten days revealed a healed infection

Preparation and characterisation of irradiated waste eggshells as oil adsorbent

Adsorption method had been developed by using natural organic adsorbent for the removal of oil because of its ability to bind the oil molecules into the surface of adsorbent. In this study, chicken eggshells waste was used and it undergoes irradiation process with four different amount of dose which was 0.5 kGy, 1.0 kGy, 1.5 kGy, and 2.0 kGy by using Gamma Cell Irradiator. Three equipment had been used for the characterization process which were the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The adsorption experiment was conducted to calculate the sorption efficiency by using different mass of samples. The result showed that irradiated chicken eggshells powder with 2.0 kGy amount of radiation dose has a best performance as oil adsorbent

A hybrid GA–PS–SQP method to solve power system valve-point economic dispatch problems

This study presents a new approach based on a hybrid algorithm consisting of Genetic Algorithm (GA), Pattern Search (PS) and Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) techniques to solve the well-known power system Economic dispatch problem (ED). GA is the main optimizer of the algorithm, whereas PS and SQP are used to fine tune the results of GA to increase confidence in the solution. For illustrative purposes, the algorithm has been applied to various test systems to assess its effectiveness. Furthermore, convergence characteristics and robustness of the proposed method have been explored through comparison with results reported in literature. The outcome is very encouraging and suggests that the hybrid GA–PS–SQP algorithm is very efficient in solving power system economic dispatch problem

Web-Based Sales Information System For Fisherman

The Web application is an application that is accessed via web over a network such as the Internet or an intranet which have become increasingly necessary in the various fields. The study is on the Web-based Sales Information System for Fishermen to simplify the selling and the buying process for the fish products. The proposed system saves the time and the efforts for the customers to check the required fish products so that they do not have to visit the fishermen's centre in Perlis. Moreover, the Web-based Sales Information System for Fishermen provides an easy way to access the information needed about the fish products in terms of the types of fish and the price

Ontology reasoning using SPARQL query: A case study of e-learning usage

The involvement of learning pedagogy towards implementation of e-learning contribute to the additional values, and it is assign as a benchmark when the investigation and evaluation will carry out. The results obtained later believed would be fit to the domain problem.The results might provide instructional theories including recommendation after reasoning that can be used to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the virtual classroom. Ontology as formal conceptualization has been chosen as research methodology. Ontology conceptualization helps to illustrate the e-learning usage including activities and actions, likewise learning pedagogy in the form of concepts, class, relationships and instances. The ontology constructed in this paper is used in conjunction with the SPARQL rules, which are designed to test the reasoning ability of ontology. Reasoning results should be able to describe the knowledge contained in ontology, as well the facts on it. The SPARQL rules contains triplets to verify if the students are actively engaged in a meaningful way towards e-learning usage. The backward engine is optimized to store the facts obtained from queries. Development of ontology knowledge based and reasoning rules with SPARQL queries allow to contribute a sustainable competitive advantages regarding the e-learning utilization. Eventually, this research produced a learning ontology with reasoning capability to get meaningful information

The Reproductive Characters of Four Varieties of Groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea L.)

The reproductive characters of 4 groundnut varieties, Nudong V-13, Matjam and Alabama. were studied. All varieties showed similar patterns of flowering, pegging and podding. Only 15 percent of the flowers produced developed mature pods. The .low yield ,was attributed to inefficient pollination and abortion of developing kernels due to adverse envzronmental mfluences

Effect of beating process to soda anthraquinone pulp of oil palm male flower spikes fibre

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of beating process to the characteristics of pulp and paper produced from oil palm oil male flower spikes (OPMFS). OPMFS pulp was prepared according to chemical Soda-AQ pulping process. 60 gsm handsheet of oil palm male flower spikes paper were prepared from OPMFS pulp with four different beating times which are O revolution, 1000 revolutions, 2000 revolutions and 3000 revolutions. All physical and mechanical characteristics were investigated according to T APPi and MS ISO standards. The results show that overall physical and mechanical characteristics of POMPS paper were influenced and enhanced by beating process between O until 3000 revolutions. This research demonstrate some potential characteristics of palm oil male flower spikes (OPMFS) paper to be investigated as a newly explored non-wood based raw material for papermaking raw material for papermaking

Biharmonic Green domains in a Riemannian manifold

summary:Let $R$ be a Riemannian manifold without a biharmonic Green function defined on it and $\Omega$ a domain in $R$. A necessary and sufficient condition is given for the existence of a biharmonic Green function on $\Omega$

Soda anthraquinone pulping of oil palm male flower spikes

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of beating process to the characteristics of pulp and paper produced from oil palm oil male flower spikes (OPMFS). OPMFS pulp was prepared according to chemical Soda-AQ pulping process. 60 gsm papersheet of oil palm male flower spiked were prepared from unbeaten and unbleached OPMFS Soda-AQ pulp. All optical, physical and mechanical characteristics were investigated according to TAPPI and MS ISO standards. OPMFS pulp recorded value of 6.42 s, 353 ml, 76.5 %, 36.7 % and 9.35 for drainage time, freeness, moisture content, screened yield percentage and Kappa number respectively..