Zinc (Zn) deficient soil prevails throughout the world and it has become the bottleneck in achieving production potential
and quality of crops. The negligible use of micronutrients along with irregular use of macronutrients is practised for
fodder production in Pakistan. Varying levels of zinc (0, 5, 10 and 15 kg ha-1) and nitrogen (0, 60, 120 and 180 kg ha-1)
were evaluated for their effect on yield, quality and zinc uptake on fodder sorghum (variety Hegari) in a field experiment
for two consecutive years (2014 and 2015). Data were analysed by using Fishers’ analysis of variance (at p<0.05) and
response surface methodology (RSM). Correlation between different parameters was also studied. Application of zinc
and nitrogen improved the plant height, leaf area plant-1, green fodder yield, dry matter yield, crude protein percentage
and zinc content of plant but decreased the neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber and ash percentage. Values for
different parameters recorded at second and third levels of zinc and nitrogen were remained at par with each other.
Application of 10 kg ha-1 zinc and 120 kg ha-1 nitrogen showed an average increase of 7.3 and 18.6% in green fodder
yield while 12.1 and 15.8% in dry matter yield, respectively. Similarly 6.1 and 7.5% increase in crude protein was noted
over control. Correlation between NDF and ADF was negative with rest of the studied parameters. In conclusion, Zn2
and
N2
gave the best results in term of yield and quality of fodder sorghum.
Motion control involving DC motors requires a closed-loop system with a suitable compensator if tracking performance with high precision is desired. In the case where structural model errors of the motors are more dominating than the effects from noise disturbances, accurate system modelling will be a considerable aid in synthesizing the compensator. The focus of this paper is on enhancing the tracking performance of a wheeled mobile robot (WMR), which is driven by two DC motors that are subject to model parametric uncertainties and uncertain deadzones. For the system at hand, the uncertain nonlinear perturbations are greatly induced by the time-varying power supply, followed by behaviour of motion and speed. In this work, the system is firstly modelled, where correlations between the model parameters and different input datasets as well as voltage supply are obtained via polynomial regressions. A robust H ∞ -fuzzy logic approach is then proposed to treat the issues due to the aforementioned perturbations. Via the proposed strategy, the H ∞ controller and the fuzzy logic (FL) compensator work in tandem to ensure the control law is robust against the model uncertainties. The proposed technique was validated via several real-time experiments, which showed that the speed and path tracking performance can be considerably enhanced when compared with the results via the H ∞ controller alone, and the H ∞ with the FL compensator, but without the presence of the robust control law.
Maritime transportation is very important for coastal state country like Malaysia. However, as having the busiest straits in the world, Malaysia is continuously exposed to the risk of marine spill. The nation had experienced around 30 marine spill incidents since 1976 to the present. The main contributor of marine spill is ship’s accident and in term of category of accident, collision had contributed the most. In term of type of substance that mostly spilled by ships is highly persistence crude oil. The management of marine spill response of Malaysia is applying the three tiers system which is base on the area and scale of the spill. The basis of establishing the marine response service is in accordance with OPRC, which incorporated into the national environmental law. With the three tiers of response system, Malaysia is equipped with arsenal of marine spill response and control equipments. However, with the present magnitude of threat, the current capacities of equipments are insufficient. Nevertheless, the possibility of full magnitude of marine spill is unlikely due to the safety features incorporated into the design of the ships and FSO/FPSO. In term of claim and compensation for marine spill incident, Malaysia is applying the two layers of compensation under the CLC 1992 Protocol and FUND 1992 Protocol. Therefore, Malaysia is ready in various aspects of marine spill response and control.
Glaucoma is a multi-factorial neurodegenerative disorder. The common denominator in all types of glaucomas is retinal ganglion cell death through apoptosis. However, this cellular demise in glaucoma is detected late by structural or functional analyses. There can be a 10-year delay prior to the appearance of visual field defects and pre-perimetric glaucoma is an issue still being addressed. However, a new cutting-edge technology called detection of apoptosing retinal cells (DARC) is being developed. This technique is capable of non-invasive, real-time visualization of apoptotic changes at the cellular level. It can detect glaucomatous cell damage at a very early stage, at the moment apoptosis starts, and thus management can be initiated even prior to development of visual field changes. In future, this technique will also be able to provide conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of treatment protocol and the need for any modifications which may be required. This article aims to provide a concise review of DARC technology.
An understanding of the pathogenesis of glaucoma is one of the foundations in glaucoma management. A number of theories have been presented to explain glaucomatous neural degeneration. The vascular theory attempts to explain the causation of glaucoma on the basis of vasogenic factors and altered he-modynamics in the body; however, this theory remains controversial. There are proponents for and against the role played by vascular factors in the development of glaucomatous optic nerve degeneration. This review aims to analyze the various studies performed to provide evidence for and against the vascular theory of glaucoma. It also affirms the need to undertake further studies regarding the path-ogenesis of glaucoma and integrate them into our management strategies. The literature search for this systemic analysis was performed using search engines, such as PubMed, The Virtual Library of the Ministry of Health Malaysia, Google Scholar, and ClinicalKey.
The purpose of the study is as a preliminary outline of the effectiveness of initiating high-risk individuals into the Health Farm concept in the primary prevention of coronary artery disease (CAD). Thirty-five (35) Army personnel, all male, with risk-factors for CAD were brought together on a Health Farm concept to go through a predesigned ten-day Farm programme comprising CAD risk-assessment, comprehensive medical examination, relevant blood chemistry analysis, physical fitness evaluation, individualised weekly exercise routine, physical fitness workouts, individualised diet, lectures, group discussion and individual counselling. Description of the participants (as measurements of various relevant parameters) are made at the start and as participant-achievement. The results show general participant-compliance to the programme which was reflected by significant changes in weight (p < 0.005), percentile VO2Max (p < 0.005), percentile push-ups (p < 0.005) and girth-difference (p < 0.005). The study showed that the Health Farm concept is effective in initiating high-risk individuals into lifestyles conducive to the primary prevention of CAD. Sustained results towards primary prevention of CAD can be expected with compliance to a long-term follow-up that has been identified and to which participants have been made aware of. Other previous intervention studies are briefly discussed.
Dimensionality reduction plays a pivotal role in preparing high-dimensional data for classification and discrimination tasks by eliminating redundant features and enhancing the efficiency of classifiers. The effectiveness of a dimensionality reduction algorithm hinges on its numerical stability. When data projections are numerically stable, they lead to enhanced class separability in the lower-dimensional embedding, consequently yielding higher classification accuracy. This paper investigates the numerical attributes of dimensionality reduction and discriminant subspace learning, with a specific focus on Locality-Preserving Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (LPPLS-DA). High-dimensional data frequently introduce singularity in the scatter matrices, posing a significant challenge. To tackle this issue, the paper explores two robust implementations of LPPLS-DA. These approaches not only optimize data projections but also capture more discriminative features, resulting in a marked improvement in classification accuracy. Empirical evidence supports these findings through numerical experiments conducted on synthetic and spectral datasets. The results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed methods when compared to several state-of-the-art dimensionality reduction techniques in terms of both classification accuracy and dimension reduction.
Glaucoma suspects are controversial clinical dilemmas. These individuals harbor certain risk factors or demonstrate some clinical features suggestive of an increased probability to develop glaucomatous optic atrophy in the future. These characteristics range from high intraocular pressure; optic disc, visual field, or retinal nerve fiber layer abnormalities; or abnormal angles to a positive family history of glaucoma and other risk factors. Individuals having these characteristics should be assessed diligently before a diagnosis of glaucoma is made. Glaucoma is a chronic, lifelong condition, having a negative impact on the quality of life, with an increased risk of medication-related side-effects, adverse economic impacts, and the need for lifestyle changes in the patient. Overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment of such individuals is bereft of any advantage. This review aims to provide a practical blueprint for the proper diagnosis and management of such glaucoma suspects.
A number of ocular diseases can be attributed to contaminated water and we have coined a term "Water-related ocular diseases (WRODs)" to denote this wide-spectrum of conditions. WRODs are directly related to human contact with water and can occur through toxic, allergic, inflammatory or infective mechanisms. The non-infective causes can include chemicals used to clean swimming pools, oil spills and water-sport related injuries. Similarly, a number of infective organisms causing ocular diseases are transmitted through water. Since, these conditions can occasionally prove devastating, a review was done with the following aims: (i) To study the epidemiology of WRODs (ii) To assess the clinical presentation and current management of WRODs (iii) To highlight the future challenges and possible solutions to these problems. The online search was conducted utilizing search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, ClinicalKey and the Virtual Library of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia for relevant terms such as water-borne, swimming pool and eye infections.
Many potential pitfalls and artefacts have been described in PET imaging that uses F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). Normal uptake of FDG occurs in many sites of the body and may cause confusion in interpretation particularly in oncology imaging. Clinical correlation, awareness of the areas of normal uptake of FDG in the body and knowledge of variation in uptake as well as benign processes that are FDG avid are necessary to avoid potential pitfalls in image interpretation. In this context, optimum preparation of patients for their scans can be instituted in an attempt to reduce the problem. Many of the problems and pitfalls associated with areas of normal uptake of FDG can be solved by using PET CT imaging. PET CT imaging has the ability to correctly attribute FDG activity to a structurally normal organ on CT. However, the development of combined PET CT scanners also comes with its own specific problems related to the combined PET CT technique. These include misregistration artefacts due to respiration and the presence of high density substances which may lead to artefactual overestimation of activity if CT data are used for attenuation correction.
Sleep quality is one of the domains of sleep. Having adequate quality sleep is defined as one's "feeling fresh" after waking-up. Inadequate sleep quality results in sleep insufficiency producing a variety of symptoms and signs. The central nervous system is affected the most in children, although other system too may be involved. Several factors affect sleep quality in children including genetics, sleep habits, medical problems, parents/caregiver factors, screen time and the child's environment. These factors are inter-related and dynamic. The outcome of sleep insufficiency is many involving neurocognitive and neurobehavior, mood and emotional issues and specific conditions, like pulmonary hypertension, cor pulmonale and obesity. Management should start with proper history taking to identify the multifaceted nature of the condition. Treatment is planned cognizant of the age of the patient and the associated etiological factors, and should involve both the children and their parents.
The Proclamation Independence Memorial is a tourist attraction in Melaka, a must visit place to get information on the events leading up to Malaysia’s Independence Day. The memorabilia and records in the Proclamation of Independence Memorial symbolize the indomitable spirit and courage of local Malays and other ethnic groups of Malaysia (formerly known as Malaya) in their fight for the country’s independence. Accessing Independence Memorial has been difficult for people who are blind and partially sighted, often due to objects being placed in glass cases and no texts or write up braille creating a barrier to access. They do not provide an equivalent experience to that which is available to the sighted audience. As a result the population who is blind and partially sighted has been significantly under served with respects to exhibits and their intellectual content. The main objective of this research is to provide an experience to blind and partially sighted visitor to get information through the braille write up and audio guide provided. To obtain relevant information, interviews were conducted with blind visitor and staffs of The Proclamation Independence Memorial at Banda Hilir Melaka. The respondent highlighted issues related to factors which restricted their accessibility to the Independence Memorial such as no write up braille and audio guided. The respondents agreed that write up braille and audio guide can attract blind partially sighted visitor to Memorial Melaka.
Safe level of daylighting for artefact conservation in historic buildings is a difficult task to achieve. Previous studies indicated that lighting problems in historic museum galleries were mainly due to unshaded walls that allowed direct sun penetration over the display areas. Ceiling geometry can also affect the daylighting performance significantly, particularly on the interior distribution of light. Malaysia, with hot and humid climate, and tropical sky conditions receives plenty of natural light all year around. The fluxes in natural lighting exposures confirm the need for strategic daylight control programme in the exhibition gallery. The study aims to assess the ceiling geometry contribution for four orientations; North, East, South and West through computer simulations. The research approach was based on comparisons between pitched and flat ceiling simulation output data. Further comparisons were performed with the recommended lighting limits for conservation of artefacts. The comparisons allowed better understanding of light damage issues and highlight the control of daylighting distributions through realistic predictive images and ceiling geometry designs. The results showed that the types of exhibits materials and its placement are affected by the ceiling geometry and constant changes in natural lighting exposure. The study confirms that ceiling geometry can act as a control mechanism with the environment physical features as part of preventive conservation criteria in the exhibition gallery. Thus, a systematic light-monitoring programme in the exhibition gallery is necessary to control illuminance level and cumulative exposure limits, for artefact preservation.
The main purpose of this study was to identify the physical fitness component relationship to the 100 meter sprint in 13-year-old male students. This study was a quantitative study using experimental case study (one shot case study) to analyze the relationship between sports-based physical fitness component and anthropometric component to 100 meter sprint. A total of 180 pupils were selected as sample samples using stratified random sampling method. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. The findings show that five out of ten talent divider variables in the 100 meter sprint variant, power, speed, reaction time, standing height and weight are the predictor of the 100 meter sprint performance among 13-year-old male students. The combination of three variants of sports-based physical fitness components contributes 50.2% (R Square = .502) variants of sports-based physical fitness components can be explained by a combination of linear measurements in a 100 meter sprint score [F (6,173) = 29.046, p
A quadratic Bézier representation withholds a curve segment with free from loops, cusps and inflection points. Furthermore,
this rational form provides extra freedom to generate visually pleasing curves due to the existence of weights. In this
paper, we propose sufficient conditions for rational quadratic Bézier curves to possess monotonic increasing/decreasing
curvatures by means of monotone curvature tests which are based on the derivative of curvature functions. We have
derived a simple interval of the middle weight that assures the construction of a family of rational quadratic Bézier curves
to be planar spirals, which is characterized by the turning angle, end curvatures and the chords of control polygon.
The proposed formulation can be used by CAD systems for aesthetic product design, highway/railway design and robot
trajectory design avoiding unwanted curvature oscillations.
Fish bone is the commonest cause of foreign body disease in Asian population. Esophageal perforation following fish bone foreign body accounts for 1-4% of the total reported cases. A 60-year-old lady presented with progressively worsening dysphagia and odynophagia over five days period following a fish meal. She sought treatment at two general practitioner clinic and a private hospital before being referred to Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. Repeated neck X-ray revealed a significant increase in prevertebral soft tissue thickness with large air-pocket tracking, small opacity at the prevertebral C3 level and subcutaneous emphysema anterior to the neck suggestive of retropharyngeal hematoma or abscess. A CT neck and thorax showed a 2.1 cm linear dense structure at the level of C7/T1 that appeared to protrude outside the esophagus in between the tracheoesophageal space. Direct laryngoscopy and repeat emergency esophagoscopy revealed a perforation at the right side of esophagus distal to cricopharyngeus with pus discharge upon milking of posterior lateral wall and a fish bone measuring 3.0 x 0.5 cm was removed from posterior wall of esophagus 17 cm from incisor. Gastrograffin study on day 10 was normal and was discharged on day 11 with Ryle’s tube feeding and to complete oral antibiotic. Fiber optic endoscopic evaluations of swallowing at two weeks follow up was normal. Subsequent review in the clinic showed full recovery without sequelae. Migrating fish bone can lead to esophagus penetration with serious complications. Mortality and morbidity from fish bone foreign body can be minimized with early diagnosis, referral and removal.
Kertas ini mengkaji sumbangan Ibn Abī Dunyā (208-281/894) dalam mengembangkan pemikiran tasawuf Islam dan peranannya dalam merumuskan falsafah kesufian yang diungkapkan oleh ahli-ahli sufi yang besar yang berkembang dengan meluas di abad ke 3 Hijrah. Penulisan dan karya-karya tasawuf yang dihasilkan oleh Ibn Abī Dunyā banyak memberikan pengaruh kepada perkembangan ilmu tasawuf di abad pertengahan dan pemikirannya dikutip oleh ulama sufi yang muktabar yang mengasaskan manhaj kesufian Islam yang utama seperti Imām al-Ghazālī, al-Qushayrī, al-Shādhilī, Ibn ‘Arabī, al-Sulamī, al-Kutubī, al-Birgivī dan sebagainya. Cetusan dan fikrah tasawuf yang digagaskannya dizahirkan dalam karya-karyanya yang monumental seperti Dhamm al-Dunyā, Dhamm al-Malāḥī, al-‘Uqūbāt, al-Jū‘, Makārim al-Akhlāq, al-Riqqah wa’l-Bukā’, al-Ṣabr, Iṣṭinā‘ al-Ma‘rūf, al-Muḥtaḍirīn, al-Mutamannīn, Ṣifat al-Nār dan sebagainya. Kertas ini akan menganalisis pemikiran dan sumbangannya yang signifikan ini dalam disiplin tasawuf dan melihat relevensinya dengan idealisme tasawuf moden.
As one of the radiation personnel, diagnostic radiographers are responsible to ensure measures related to radiation protection are taken appropriately. However, the awareness towards radiation protection and safety were insufficient and there is a need to improve the radiation protection culture (RPC) among radiographers. Therefore, this paper aims to integrate the Islamic Perspectives in radiation fundamental safety principles which are related to diagnostic radiographer’s responsibility. Later, is to highlight the application of integrating the Islamic perspectives towards improving RPC among Muslim radiographers. Out of the 10 safety principles, radiographers are able to directly contribute in six principles which are the responsibility for safety, justification of facilities and activities, optimisation of protection, limitation of risk, protection of oneself and others as well as future generations, and prevention of accidents. The Islamic perspectives related to those principles were taken from Al-Quran, hadith and Maqasid al-Shariah. They are related to the concept of responsibility, beneficence, justice, moderation (al-wasatiyyah), do no harm, protection of life and prevention from harm from the Islamic perspectives. In order to improve RPC, education and training of the involved professionals as well as adequate communication are important. Incorporating Islamic perspectives of radiation safety principles during the training session and constantly reminding the Muslim radiographers of those Islamic perspectives through poster display can be done. It is hopeful that by realizing the principles
of radiation safety are in line with the teaching of Islam, Muslim radiographers will be more involved
in the RPC programmes in the department.
The new emergence and re-emergence of arbovirus infections transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes have been spreading across Southeast Asia, Central Africa, United States, tropical Oceania and has become a major of public health concern. These arbovirus diseases were found to have a similar vector, symptoms, and environments. The situation is complex due to no specific vaccine or treatments being available for the diseases. Therefore, vector control is currently the best defense against arbovirus diseases, but with its own challenges such as the difficulty in controlling scattered breeding sites and biological behavior. Herein, we present a literature review of studies on current techniques proposed to combat dengue transmission that can fill a crucial gap in vector control programs, which is the inability of conventional control methods to eliminate and destroy cryptic breeding sites. In particular, we focused on the concept of autodissemination, which is a self-delivery technique by manipulating the behavior of mosquitoes, carrying the insecticide and disseminating it to cryptic breeding sites. This technique has shown promising results in some countries and can be considered as an additional tool in a vector control program. Therefore, we conducted Boolean searches in several electronic databases including Google Scholar, PubMed, SciELO and ScienceDirect to identify relevant published data regarding dengue and autodissemination techniques.