The increased uptake of evidence from systematic reviews is advocated because of their potential to improve the quality of decision making for patient care. Systematic reviews can do this by decreasing inappropriate clinical variation and quickly expediting the application of current, effective advances to everyday practice. However, research suggests that evidence from systematic reviews has not been widely adopted by health professionals. Little is known about the facilitators to uptake of research evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Objectives: Medication adherence to treatment recommendations has major impact on health outcomes. Numerous interventions to improve medication adherence among the patients have been studied in clinical trials, including calendar packaging and patient reminder letters. Therefore, this study is aimed to explore hypertensive patient’s perceptions towards calendar packaging and its impact on medication adherence.
Methods: A qualitative method was adopted, whereby two focus group sessions were conducted among 16 conveniently sampled hypertensive patients from a community based non-governmental organisation in the state of Penang, Malaysia. A pre validated focus group guide was constructed and used for data collection. Collected data was transcribed verbatim and analysed by thematic content analysis to identify the emerging themes.
Results: Each focus group consisted of 8 hypertensive patients. Thematic content analysis resulted into 3 major themes (knowledge and familiarity with the medicines names and their packaging; perception about the packaging and labelling of medicines; knowledge and views of calendar packaging) and each theme was further divided into 2 sub themes. Majority of the hypertensive patients were not familiar with their medication names, however they were able to identify their medications based on the appearance and packaging. Participants agreed that calendar packaging is a great intervention to increase awareness among patients about regular medicine use and increase medication adherence.
Conclusions: The study concluded that hypertensive patients relied on the packaging and labelling on the medications to identify their medications. Thus, packaging and labelling of the medications play an important role in improving medication adherence and reduce medication errors. This finding can help to enhance the drug manufacturers to pay attention on the drug packaging in order to increase medication adherence among the patients.
In this paper, the unsteady stagnation-point boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a special third grade fluid past a permeable stretching/shrinking sheet has been studied. Similarity transformation is used to transform the system of boundary layer equations which is in the form of partial differential equations into a system of ordinary differential equations. The system of similarity equations is then reduced to a system of first order differential equations and has been solved numerically by using the bvp4c function in Matlab. The numerical solutions for the skin friction coefficient and heat transfer coefficient as well as the velocity and temperature profiles are presented in the forms of tables and graphs. Dual solutions exist for both cases of stretching and shrinking sheet. Stability analysis is performed to determine which solution is stable and valid physically. Results from the stability analysis depict that the first solution (upper branch) is stable and physically realizable, while the second solution (lower branch) is unstable.
The role of aerial dispersal in shaping patterns of biodiversity remains poorly understood, mainly due to a lack of coordinated efforts in gathering data at appropriate temporal and spatial scales. It has been long known that the rate of dispersal to an ecosystem can significantly influence ecosystem dynamics, and that aerial transport has been identified as an important source of biological input to remote locations. With the considerable effort devoted in recent decades to understanding atmospheric circulation in the south-polar region, a unique opportunity has emerged to investigate the atmospheric ecology of Antarctica, from regional to continental scales. This concept note identifies key questions in Antarctic microbial biogeography and the need for standardized sampling and analysis protocols to address such questions. A consortium of polar aerobiologists is established to bring together researchers with a common interest in the airborne dispersion of microbes and other propagules in the Antarctic, with opportunities for comparative studies in the Arctic.
OBJECTIVE: Special Study Module (SSM) is a mandatory research module implemented in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). The objective of this paper is to provide a brief overview on the student research activities and to find out the outcome measures in terms of publication.
METHODS: It was a retrospective study done on SSM research projects at UKM. The SSM research is conducted from beginning of year-4 until 1(st) seven weeks of year-5. In year-4, students are assigned to a faculty-supervisor in small groups and spend every Thursday afternoon to plan and carry the research. Whole first seven weeks of year-5, students are placed with their supervisor continuously to collect data, do analysis, write report and present in the scientific conference. Outcomes of 5-years SSM research-projects starting from 2008/2009 to 2012/2013 academic session were analyzed.
RESULTS: Total 257 projects were completed and presented in annual scientific meetings from which 57 (22.2%) articles were published in peer reviewed journals.
CONCLUSION: Mandatory undergraduate student research project brings an opportunity to develop students' capacity building from conception to final report writing and thereby narrowing the gap between education and practice. Medical schools should implement research module to bring changes in research and publication culture of undergraduate medical education.
KEYWORDS: Malaysia; Medical education; Publication; Research; Undergraduate
Tropical forests are highly diverse systems involving extraordinary numbers of interactions between species, with each species responding in a different way to the abiotic environment. Understanding how these systems function and predicting how they respond to anthropogenic global change is extremely challenging. We argue for the necessity of 'whole-ecosystem' experimental manipulations, in which the entire ecosystem is targeted, either to reveal the functioning of the system in its natural state or to understand responses to anthropogenic impacts. We survey the current range of whole-ecosystem manipulations, which include those targeting weather and climate, nutrients, biotic interactions, human impacts, and habitat restoration. Finally we describe the unique challenges and opportunities presented by such projects and suggest directions for future experiments.
"This paper aims to show that the establishment of a better data collection and reporting system in Malaysia since 1991 has led to an apparent increase in the maternal mortality ratio.... Because of improved surveillance, the maternal mortality ratio may continue to appear to rise for a few years but should decline after that reflecting the improvement in the health status and service delivery in Malaysia."
Matched MeSH terms: Health Services Research; Research; Research Design*
The relative yields of ϒ mesons produced in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV and reconstructed via the dimuon decay channel are measured using data collected by the CMS experiment. Double ratios are formed by comparing the yields of the excited states, ϒ(2S) and ϒ(3S), to the ground state, ϒ(1S), in both Pb-Pb and pp collisions at the same center-of-mass energy. The double ratios, [ϒ(nS)/ϒ(1S)]_{Pb-Pb}/[ϒ(nS)/ϒ(1S)]_{pp}, are measured to be 0.308±0.055(stat)±0.019(syst) for the ϒ(2S) and less than 0.26 at 95% confidence level for the ϒ(3S). No significant ϒ(3S) signal is found in the Pb-Pb data. The double ratios are studied as a function of collision centrality, as well as ϒ transverse momentum and rapidity. No significant dependencies are observed.
A study was conducted to understand the relative abundance and growth of male and female Nemipterus furcosus population in the Pahang coastal water, Malaysia. The sampling was done monthly for a period of one year. A total of 1446 fish specimens were studied in this research. The results showed that male N. furcosus population was significantly more than female (p<0.01) N. furcosus population. The growth coefficient (b value) varied between 2.6808 and 3.2396 for male and 2.0926 and 3.2838 for female N. furcosus. The growth co-efficients of male N. furcosus were significantly different than the growth co-efficients of female N. furcosus in all months (p<0.05). They showed negative allometric growths in February- June and September. Female N. furcosus showed positive allometric growths in November-January and August. Isometric growths of female were observed only in October and July. As for male N. furcosus, negative allometric growths were observed in March-June, November and January. Male N. furcosus showed positive allometric growths in August, September, October, December and February. Male N. furcosus showed isometric growth only in July. The overall mean condition factor of male and female was statistically similar (p>0.05). The condition factor (K) ranged from 1.2559 to 1.3917 for male while 1.2503 to 1.3926 for female N. furcosus. Overall, higher mean condition factor was observed in smaller fish of both sexes. This study is useful for policy makers and fishery biologists for sustainable fishery management in the Pahang coastal water, Malaysia.
Background: The state of palliative care research is closely linked to the development of palliative care services in a country or region. Objective: To systematically review the current state of palliative care research in the Asia Pacific region and analyze its relationship with the performance of each country in the region on the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2015 Quality of Death Index. Design: Systematic review and bibliographic analysis in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocol 2015 (PRISMA-P). Data Sources: The PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS, CINAHL, and PsychiNFO databases were searched on February 4, 2018. Results: One thousand six hundred sixty-seven articles were reviewed. Eighteen out of 32 countries in the region published research. Around 74.15% (1236) of the articles were produced by high-income countries. Research output (articles per 1 m population) was closely linked to country performance on the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2015 Quality of Death Index (adjusted R2= 0.85). Palliative care research in the region is overwhelmingly focused on cancer (80.13% of articles reviewed). The most common themes of research were "palliative care service (24.45%)" and "clinical" (15.38%). Conclusions: Palliative care research in the region is growing but remains largely centered on the high-income countries, with many low- and middle-income countries having little published research output. Much work is required to drive research in these countries to generate the evidence required for the development of palliative care services. The emphasis on cancer in research also indicates that the needs of patients suffering from noncancer-related diseases may be neglected.
This study intended to validate customer inspiration (CI)in Malaysian/developing country context. Data were collected from two different respondents for two studies - from Millennial customers of the auto industry and Generation Z customers of the smartphone industry. The survey conducted through a standardized and structured questionnaire. The variables of the both studies were customer-defined market orientation (MO) (customer orientation, competitor orientation, and interfunctional coordination), CI (inspired-by and inspired-to), and customer loyalty (CL). This research strategy, in terms of quantity, is descriptive and correlational. Statistical analysis of the data was carried out, using ADANCO 2.0. The finding of the study suggests all results of data 1 and data 2 were significant, and CI mediates the sub-constructs of MO with CL.
Forecasting of groundwater level variations is a significantly needed in groundwater resource management. Precise water level prediction assists in practical and optimal usage of water resources. The main objective of using an artificial neural network (ANN) was to investigate the feasibility of feed-forward, Elman and Cascade forward neural networks with different algorithms to estimate groundwater levels in the Langat Basin from 2007 to 2013. In order to examine the accuracy of monthly water level forecasts, effectiveness of the steepness coefficient in the sigmoid function of a developed ANN model was evaluated in this research. The performance of the models was evaluated using the mean squared error (MSE) and the correlation coefficient (R). The results indicated that the ANN technique was well suited for forecasting groundwater levels. All models developed had shown acceptable results. Based on the observation, the feed-forward neural network model optimized with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithms showed the most beneficial results with the minimum MSE value of (0.048) and maximum R value of (0.839), obtained for simulation of groundwater levels. The present research conclusively showed the capability of ANNs to provide excellent estimation accuracy and valuable sensitivity analyses.
Both honeybees (Apis spp.) and stingless bees (Trigona spp.) produce honeys with high nutritional and therapeutics value. Until recently, the information regarding potential health benefits of stingless bee honey (SBH) in medical databases is still scarce as compared to the common European bee honey (EBH) which is well known for their properties as therapeutic agents. Although there have been very few reports on SBH, empirically these products would have similar therapeutic quality as the EBH. In addition, due to the structure of the nest, few studies reported that the antimicrobial activity of SBH is a little bit stronger than EBH. Therefore, the composition of both the types of honey as well as the traditional uses and clinical applications were compared. The results of various studies on EBH and SBH from tissue culture research to randomised control clinical trials were collated in this review. Interestingly, there are many therapeutic properties that are unique to SBH. Therefore, SBH has a great potential to be developed for modern medicinal uses.
Today, electromagnetic wave theory is commonly used in many engineering devices. However, such devices produce electromagnetic (EM) radiation, damaging people's health and the impact of other electronic device's operation. Therefore, Microwave Absorber has been widely used in anechoic chamber to measure equipment radiation and prevent unwanted radiation and electromagnetic interference. This research investigates the absorption performance of pyramidal absorbers with a slotted method design. This research used rectangular and triangular slotted on the hollow pyramidal absorber. There are six types of slotted: Design 1, Design 2, and Design 3
which have triangular shapes, and Design 4, Design 5, and Design 6, have rectangular shapes. The pyramidal absorber is produced using CST Microwave Studio Suite. Afterward, the fabrication process is performed using cardboard and coated with Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC). Measurement had been done successfully via far-field measurement using an arch method at 1 GHz to 12 GHz. The slotted pyramidal absorber's absorptivity was taken in each frequency band and was tabulated in figure 10. The result is compared with their maximum absorption in each of the four frequency bands. Comparison based on slot design, triangular and rectangular each had its own advantages at a certain frequency. However, small rectangular slot of Design 1 shows consistent absorption performance at all frequency band.
Questioned document examination becomes a great interest and one of the broad fields in forensic science. It involves the analysis of ink, handwriting and signature examination, paper’s physical structure analysis and the ageing of a document. Ink analysis in forensic document examination is a challenging process. Questioned documents examiners are dealing with unknown source of ink and minute sample size. Ink extraction needs to be done before the ink analysis. 17 gel pen ink samples were chosen in this study. Solubility test has been done to determine the degree of solubility of ink in a variety of organic solvents. Extraction solvent optimization is a process to evaluate the efficiency of organic solvents to extract ink samples. Ethanoic acid showed the ability to dissolve most of the ink samples and displayed maximum absorbance of UV-Vis spectra.