Leaving children without reasonable care and supervision: Between law and reality in Malaysia

Parents and guardians have a moral as well as a legal duty to exercise reasonable care and supervision on their children. Unfortunately, whether we realize it or not, there are several acts and omissions committed by these parents or guardians which are detrimental to the child concerned. One such omission is where the child is left without any reasonable care and supervision by his or her parents or guardian. Data and reports show that there are a number of reported cases of children being left without reasonable care and supervision which have resulted in casualties. Most of these reported cases show that the children were either trapped in their own houses or cars as a result of being locked from the outside by their parents or guardian. Due to the increase in the number of such cases, the legislature has made leaving children without reasonable care and supervision by the parents or guardian an offence under the Child Act 2001. Although it is an offence to leave children without reasonable care and supervision, it is sad to note that there are still cases where children are being left unattended for various reasons. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine the abovementioned problem as well as to look at the same from the perception of the respondents based on the research that has been conducted

Super Fibonacci Graceful Labeling of Some Special Class of Graphs

A Fibonacci graceful labeling and a super Fibonacci graceful labeling on graphs were introduced by Kathiresan and Amutha in 2006

Mutual Dependence: A Novel Method for Computing Dependencies Between Random Variables

In data science, it is often required to estimate dependencies between different data sources. These dependencies are typically calculated using Pearson's correlation, distance correlation, and/or mutual information. However, none of these measures satisfy all the Granger's axioms for an "ideal measure". One such ideal measure, proposed by Granger himself, calculates the Bhattacharyya distance between the joint probability density function (pdf) and the product of marginal pdfs. We call this measure the mutual dependence. However, to date this measure has not been directly computable from data. In this paper, we use our recently introduced maximum likelihood non-parametric estimator for band-limited pdfs, to compute the mutual dependence directly from the data. We construct the estimator of mutual dependence and compare its performance to standard measures (Pearson's and distance correlation) for different known pdfs by computing convergence rates, computational complexity, and the ability to capture nonlinear dependencies. Our mutual dependence estimator requires fewer samples to converge to theoretical values, is faster to compute, and captures more complex dependencies than standard measures

Protection Schemes for 4G Multihop wireless Networks

This paper describes the relay node protection using network coding for fourth generation multihop wireless networks and analises the QoS performance with the proposed scheme. The Quality of Service performance, such as PDR, latency and jitter, are measured for different scenarios. The scenarios for 4G wireless networks include failure of a single and two relay nodes, with and without the protection scheme, and user’s mobility

Mechanisms of IKBKE Activation in Cancer

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the USA and it is expected to surpass heart diseases making it important to understand the underlying mechanisms of cancer. The efforts to target single signaling molecule showed little success in increasing the patient survival and it can be due to increased compensation for cell survival by alternative pathway activations. Hence comprehensive understanding of the alternative signaling pathways may help us treat cancer better. Chronic inflammation is attributed to increased risk of cancer and emerging studies show the growing importance of both canonical and non-canonical IκB kinases such as IKKα, IKKβ, IKBKE and TBK1 in human cancer pathogenesis. Initially identified as activator of NFκB pathway, IKBKE was shown to play an important oncogenic role by regulating multiple pathways downstream. Although IKBKE is implicated in tumorigenesis for over a decade, therapeutic targeting of this pathway has been a challenge. Recently, amlexanox and CYT387, which are in clinical trials for Type II diabetes and myeloproliferative disorders respectively, were identified as potential IKBKE inhibitors. In this study, we uncovered specific novel mechanisms of activation of IKBKE in tumor cells and the outcomes of targeting IKBKE pathway. Oncogenic mutations are a cause of several human malignancies. Mutations in EGFR are observed in 15% of non-small cell lung cancer patients. While cells expressing these mutations respond better to the first generation TKIs, patients become resistant to these inhibitors due to secondary mutations in EGFR. These mutations were shown to make EGFR constitutively active even in the absence of ligands. Direct targeting of EGFR with secondary mutations has been challenging as EGFR acquires novel mutations upon inhibitor treatment, which confer resistance to the EGFR-TKIs. Hence, it is important to improve our knowledge of the downstream signaling pathways of EGFR. Although PI3K, MEK signaling are well established, mutant EGFR was shown to activate several novel signaling pathways such as miRNA processing and autophagy that are implicated in resistance to EGFR-TKIs. Here, we show that IKBKE acts downstream of mutant EGFR to activate the NFκB and AKT pathways. In addition, we show that mutant EGFR but not wildtype EGFR can directly phosphorylate IKBKE at Tyrosine 153 and Tyrosine 179 residues that are important for activation of IKBKE kinase. We also found that the IKBKE/TBK1 inhibitor Amlexanox exhibits increased efficacy in inhibiting cell viability in NSCLC cells with activating EGFR mutations. Furthermore, we also found that IKBKE inhibitors activate the MAPK pathway, and EGFR-TKI resistant NSCLCs exhibit enhanced response to co-treatment with IKBKE inhibitors and MEK inhibitors. Similar to lung cancer, pancreatic cancer is a challenging disease due to lack of direct inhibitors of the KRas mutations that are observed in more than 95% of pancreatic cancer patients. IKBKE/TBK1 pathway is important for KRas signaling, but the efficacy of IKBKE inhibitors in pancreatic cancers is not well studied. Here, we show that IKBKE is an important target in pancreatic cancers that regulates pancreatic cell viability, cell migration and cancer stem cells. Importantly, we provide mechanistic insights into the effects of IKBKE inhibitors on specific signaling pathways. We found that IKBKE inhibition results in significantly increased expression of RTKs, such as ErbB3 and IGF1-R, which increases ERK1/2 activation. Our findings provide support for novel combination strategies for pancreatic cancer. Metastasis is a poor prognostic factor for ovarian cancer. Although patients with early stage ovarian cancer with no distal metastasis exhibit a 70% 5-year survival rate, Stage IV patients with distal metastasis exhibit only 20% 5-year survival rate. Hence, ongoing efforts are aimed at targeting the pathways that regulate metastasis in ovarian cancers. IKBKE is upregulated in ovarian cancer patients, and IKBKE expression is known to regulate the expression of several genes important for cell motility in ovarian cancers. IKBKE is also implicated in chemo-resistance in ovarian cancer, and siRNA knockdown of IKBKE increases sensitivity towards chemotherapy. However, the mechanistic role of IKBKE in chemo-resistance in ovarian cancer is not known. EphA2 is another well studied oncogene in ovarian cancer as 70% of ovarian cancer patients exhibit elevated levels of EphA2. By activating Focal Adhesion Kinases (FAK), EphA2 can induce metastasis in ovarian cancers. In this study, we show that the clinical PARP inhibitor Olaparib (AZD2281) activates IKBKE by EphA2-mediated tyrosine phosphorylation. We also found that phosphorylation of EphA2 or IKBKE expression can be used as a biomarker for olaparib resistance. Together, these studies have shed light on novel mechanisms of regulation of IKBKE and their importance in therapy resistance. These observations form a strong pre-clinical proof-of-concept to study the inhibitors further in the clinic

Dayaks in a Ledger: A Bornean Labor History and an Oil Town’s Indigenous Workers

This article delineates a hitherto eclipsed labor history of the Northwest Borneo oilfields. In 2018, Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) in an unprecedented move, released to Brunei’s national archive two labor registers of the British Malayan Petroleum Company (BMPC-renamed BSP in 1958), with entries dating between the 1940s and 1950s. These registers provided a rare glimpse of the workers who were recruited to the Brunei oilfields as labor, a category distinct from staff. As BMPC labor they worked to rehabilitate the company town and the oilfields that were destroyed during the Second World War by the Japanese army and allied bombing in the British protectorate of Brunei. Like colonial records that amassed information for the control and rule of colonized subjects, each entry in BMPC’s ledger meticulously noted the date of engagement, place of employment, wages, work history, as well as some biographical information about its workers. Inadvertently, these entries also revealed modes of worker resistance and assertions of agency, thus providing a glimpse of the hidden transcripts of a labor history shaped by the policies of BMPC in this colonial outpost. My article draws on these two BMPC labor registers to trace a micro-spatial history of “Dayak” labor in the emergent Borneo oilfields. Often obscured in historical records, the registers made visible the ways in which Indigenous workers negotiated and resisted the company’s control of its labor force. I explore Dayak labor recruitment within the context of the 1880s-1941 when state borders irrevocably shifted and regional economies were increasingly drawn into a global market. In doing so, I chart migrant labor routes across varied regional economies in Northwest Borneo, BMPC’s management of a multiethnic labor force, and company workers’ agency

Effects of Extreme Low Temperature on Composite Materials

This thesis discusses the effect of cryogenic temperatures on composite materials. The work includes estimating the shear strength of carbon/epoxy and glass/polyester composites at low temperatures and finding the rate of generation of microcracks in composites at cryogenic temperatures by acoustic emission technique. Microcracks increase the permeability of composites. So to study the permeability growth with microcracks, equipment is also designed to measure the permeability of composite to low temperature fluids. With short beam shear testing it was observed that the shear strength of composites increases with decreasing temperatures. Also carbon/epoxy composites were found to be much stronger than glass/polyester composites. Cryogenic temperatures improve the strength of composites but also generate microcracks in the structure due to the thermal expansion mismatch between the matrix and fiber. With acoustic emission testing from room to –150ºC, it was found that the rate of generation of microcracks increases with reducing temperatures. The work is extended to design a permeability equipment

A new method to improve transmission efficiency under multi-link interference situation

An endeavor has been made to expand the transmission productivity and system lifetime of a wireless sensor network (WSN) by grouping technique utilizing Fuzzy rationale. Here, the cluster head (CH) is chosen dependent on the Fuzzy rationale. Upgrade of lifetime for the nodes working in WSN is a significant issue that should be settled for expanding the framework productivity and execution. The procedure of clustering has discovered huge number of advantages concerning accomplishing framework effectiveness and least vitality utilization. The conventions utilized in a canny WSN should support greatest transmission productivity and give most extreme system lifetime from the used calculation that is actually endeavored to be accomplished through this technique. The first node dead (FND) and the lifetime of the system utilizing the fuzzy logic in the proposed work are contrasted and four different mechanisms. Both FND and lifetime are seen as better in the present work which gives a productive way to deal with WSN

Enhanced Home Registration security protocol in MobileIPv6

The Enhanced Home Registration (EHR) protocol extends the basic home registration protocol defined in MIPv6 to support the location authentication of MNs to their HAs. The EHR is based on novel ideas of segmenting the IPv6 address space, using a symmetric CGA-based technique for generating CoAs, and applying concurrent CoAs reachability tests. As a result, EHR is able to reduce the likelihood of a malicious MN being successful in luring an HA to flood a third party with useless packets using MIPv6. In addition, EHR enables HAs to help in correspondent registrations by confirming MNs' CoAs to CNs