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- PublicationIntegrative Taxonomy Of The Limnonectes Hascheanus-Limborgi (Anura: Dicroglossidae) Complex: Resolving Cryptic Species In Peninsular Malaysia(2025-05)Limnonectes hascheanus and l. Limborgi are two closely related species that are herein referred to as the limnonectes hascheanus–limborgi complex. In the past, l. Hascheanus was the only species reported to be present in peninsular malaysia. Matsui reported one of their examined specimens from janda baik as l. Limborgi. This study aimed to ascertain the status of both species in peninsular malaysia through an integrated approach, combining morphological, bioacoustic and molecular data. The results indicated that in peninsular malaysia there two different lineages of the l. Hascheanus–limborgi complex that can be separated genetically, by their male advertisement calls, as well as by external morphology. Both lineages differ by having a high genetic distance between them of 2.4–7.8% based on both mtdna 16s rrna and nudna tyrosinase genes. One lineage has a morphotype assignable to l. Hascheanus described from penang island and bears the following characteristics: slender body and light or dark–olive–brown color; toe webbing not reaching middle subarticular tubercle on the fourth toe; and the absence of enlarged odontoids in males. Populations from langkawi island; kedah, perlis, and some specimens from bukit larut, perak are genetically and bioacoustically similar to topotypic specimens of l. Hascheanus from penang island.
- PublicationCollaborative-Based Approach Utilizing Ensemble Feature Selection For Detecting Http-Get Ddos Attacks In Cloud Computing Environments(2025-05)Cloud computing environment (cce)-based services present a novel paradigm for remote business management. One of the primary advantages of utilizing cce is the availability of on-demand services, thereby facilitating a pay-per-use model. This makes cce technology a convenient means of facilitating services over the internet. However, security vulnerabilities, such as distributed denial of service (ddos) attacks, particularly http-get ddos attacks at the application layer, pose a significant threat to service availability in cces. This thesis proposes a collaborative approach utilizing ensemble feature selection to detect http-get ddos attacks in cces. The proposed approach comprises six phases. The first phase entails data gathering and pre-processing, responsible for collecting and processing data from multiple sources. The second phase involves dataset generation, comprising the creation of a synthetic cce-specific dataset. The third phase focuses on feature enrichment, aiming to augment the avws access log extracted from vm activity and resource logs to enhance the detection of http-get ddos attacks. The fourth phase entails dataset validation, aimed at validating the dataset to ensure its validity and readiness, and confirming that it meets the requirements of a benchmark dataset. The fifth phase involves ensemble feature selection, aimed at selecting the most crucial and minimal feature set that contributes to detecting http-get ddos attacks. The sixth phase aims to develop a deep learning detection model based on long short-term memory (lstm) to detect http-get ddos attacks on cce accurately.
- PublicationEvaluation Of Current Practices Of Antimicrobial Use Among Neonates And Children In Selected Hospitals Of Punjab, Pakistan(2025-06)Excessive and inappropriate use of antibiotics are one of the principal drivers of antimicrobial resistance (amr) including children. Consequently, the judicious and optimal use of antibacterial agents is an urgent need under pediatric oriented antimicrobial stewardship program (asp). There are considerable concerns with current high levels of inappropriate antibiotic use across all sectors in pakistan and the subsequent implications for amr. However, more information is needed, especially following the covid-19 pandemic, to achieve future targets. Consequently, the objectives of the study were to ascertain the current practices of antimicrobial use among neonates and children across hospitals in punjab, pakistan, combined with the current knowledge of asps and their implementation among pediatricians, to provide future guidance to all key stakeholder groups in pakistan. The world health organization (who) developed a standardized methodology to ascertain current antibiotic prescribing practices in hospitalized settings named “point prevalence survey (pps)”, which was adopted for the pps studies in this phd. In the first phase of this study, a multicenter pps was conducted among leading children’s hospitals in the public sector in pakistan treating infants and children as well as in the children wards of fourteen tertiary care health settings in the largest province,
- PublicationNovel Deep Learning-Based Models For Air Quality Prediction: Addressing Non-Stationary And Spatio-Temporal Issues(2025-06)Accurate air quality monitoring and forecasting are essential for public health, environmental regulation, and urban planning. However, prediction remains challenging due to the inherent non-stationarity of pollutant data, influenced by dynamic emission sources, meteorological variability, and human activities. Complex spatio-temporal dependencies, including lead-lag effects among monitoring stations, further complicate the modeling process. Balancing model accuracy and computational efficiency is crucial. This thesis addresses the challenges of predicting air quality by proposing three innovative models. The first model, named pca-dswt-nlstm, combines principal component analysis (pca), discrete stationary wavelet transform (dswt), and nested long short-term memory (nlstm) for temporal prediction. The second model, named the seasonal-trend spatio-temporal long short-term memory (st2-lstm), is developed for spatio-temporal prediction while considering trend and seasonality. The third model, named spatio-temporal inverted transformer (st-itransformer), is proposed for spatio-temporal prediction with exogenous variables. All three models are rigorously evaluated on real air pollutant data through ablation studies, comparative experiments, and detailed analyses. Results demonstrate that the proposed models consistently outperform benchmark models across various performance metrics, significantly enhancing air quality forecasting capabilities. Specifically, pca-dswt-nlstm excels in pm2.5 prediction with efficient feature extraction and long-term memory. St2-lstmcaptures seasonal and spatial patterns effectively, showing stable and accurate results. St-itransformer delivers high accuracy across multiple stations by modeling spatial lead-lag effects, proving robust for both short-term and long-term forecasts.
- PublicationPatient Safety Culture And Hospital Performance: Patient Safety Outcomes And Patient Rights In Public Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospitals In Sichuan Province, China(2025-06)This study examined the influence of patient safety culture on hospital performance within public traditional chinese medicine (tcm) hospitals in sichuan, china, by specifically considering the role of patient rights and patient safety outcomes. The study begins by establishing the importance of hospital performance, emphasising its multi-dimensional nature, which includes financial performance, customer satisfaction, internal business processes, and aspects of learning and growth. The study emphasises the significance of adopting a comprehensive approach, such as a balanced scorecard, for performance evaluation in healthcare settings, particularly public tcm hospitals in sichuan. The study highlights the role of patient safety culture as a critical factor impacting hospital performance. The study provides a detailed understanding of patient safety culture, which is described as the shared values, beliefs, and norms within a healthcare organisation that influence individual and collective behaviours related to patient safety.
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- PublicationPreparation of titania from carbosulfidation of malaysian ilmenite with catalyst(2024-08-01)Titanium dioxide (TiO2) essential for various industrial applications. Global demand for TiO2 was projected to increase annually. Thus, attention needs to be paid to ilmenite, which is abundance in nature, as the reserves of high purity source, rutile was depleting rapidly. However, Malaysian ilmenite contains high impurities. The research aims to study how varying temperatures, reaction times, and the concentration of NaCl affect the carbosulfidation process, described in the form of extent of reduction (R) and the degree of sulfidization (Xs). The morphological, and compositional properties was investigated to identify the formation of titanium oxide phases and removal of Fe. The research was conducted at different combination of parameters, done by DOE. DOE was carried out by using 2k factorial design to define the optimum parameters. Phase analysis was performed using XRD and SEM to identify surface morphology and elemental composition by EDX and XRF. From DOE results, the R was the highest at condition with 0.017 mol NaCl, 1100°C and 3 hours at 72.71 % (sample 8), while at 0.017 mol NaCl, 900 °C and 1 hours, the Xs was the highest (52.70%) in sample 5. The results showed the increase in NaCl concentration resulted in a higher R and Xs. Increasing in temperature and reaction time led to a higher R, significantly favoured the formation of titanium oxide compounds, with higher total of TiO2, and Ti6O11 phases formation in XRD result. However, the Xs decreased with longer reaction times, highlighting a limit to the sulfidation process's efficiency. XRD and SEM further confirmed the formation of key phases such as FeS2, TiO2, and Ti6O11 in cubic structure. The novelty of this research lies in its comprehensive investigation of the carbosulfidation process for extracting titanium oxides from Malaysian ilmenite while removing Fe as FeS2, by exploring the synergistic effects of both processes.
- PublicationChanges in ph of digestive vacuole of plasmodium falciparum treated with pipecolisporin and analogue ii peptide(2025-01)Malaria is a severe and fatal disease caused by Plasmodium spp. and remains one of the leading global causes of morbidity and mortality. The emergence of drug-resistant P. falciparum in various countries has necessitated an effort to discover new antimalarial drugs targeting different pathways. Research on the potential of pipecolisporin and analogue II as an antimalarial agent has remained limited. Therefore, this study aimed to fill this knowledge gap by investigating the antimalarial activity of pipecolisporin and analogue II peptides. The antimalarial potential of pipecolisporin and analogue II against the chloroquine-sensitive strain (3D7) of P. falciparum was assessed based on the calculation of parasitaemia using Giemsa stained-blood smears. The pipecolisporin and analogue II exhibited highly active antimalarial activity with an IC50 value of 0.4770 and 0.1170 μM, respectively. A further investigation focused on the effect of pipecolisporin and analogue II towards the pH of the mid trophozoite stage parasite’s digestive vacuole, employing a flow cytometry-based technique with fluorescein isothiocyanate-dextran (FITC-dextran) as a pH ratiometric probe. The results revealed no increase in pH following pipecolisporin and analogue II treatment. Suggests that pipecolisporin and analogue II might not have the mechanism to alter the digestive vacuole’s pH through the inhibition of V-type H+-ATPase that regulates the acidification of the vacuole. Overall, this study provides crucial evidence of pipecolisporin and analogue II capability as a promising antimalarial candidate
- PublicationTranscriptome analysis of ischemic stroke recovery induced by neural stem cell preconditioned with baicalein-enriched fraction of oroxylum indicum(2024-07)Ischemic stroke is one of the leading causes of death and a major contributor to adult disability worldwide. Transplantation of regenerative stem cells preconditioned with natural products was applied to restore the damaged neural circuity after an attack of ischemic stroke. However, the key regulators and pathways underlying such recovery are still mainly unknown. In this study, neural stem cells (NSCs) preconditioned with baicalein enriched fraction (BEF), a neuroprotective active compound extracted from a local medicinal plant known as Oroxylum indicum (O. indicum), was transplanted into an ischemic stroke rat model and a transcriptome analysis was applied to profile the brain total ribonucleic acid (RNA) expression to identify the key genes and pathways underlying the ischemic stroke recovery induced by the preconditioned NSC transplantation. A total of 15 Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were injected with endothelin-1 (ET-1) to occlude the middle cerebral artery (MCA) blood vessel inside the brain, mimicking the ischemic stroke disease in human. The ET-1 induced ischemic stroke rat models were randomly assigned into 3 subgroups, namely Group 1: Non-treated (control group, n = 5), Group 2: Treated with non-preconditioned NSCs (n = 5) and Group 3: Treated with BEF-preconditioned NSCs (n = 5). The animal neurological behaviours were monitored and scored based on modified neurological severity score (mNSS) test, cylinder test and grid-walking test for 14 days (p-value < 0.05). After 14 days, all the rats were sacrificed by intraperitoneal injection of ketamine (200 mg/kg) and Xylazine (20 mg/kg). The brain issues were harvested and snap-frozen using liquid nitrogen to homogenize the brain tissue for RNA extraction. The extracted RNA was analysed using microarray assay to reveal differentially expressed genes (DEGs), gene ontology (GO) and biological pathways related to neurological behavior improvement of the rats. The results revealed that the experimental rats treated with NSCs preconditioned with BEF at 3.125 µg/mL for 48 hours improved neurological behavioral function as fast as just 24 hours after the treatment (p-value < 0.05), compared to rats treated with non-preconditioned NSCs and non-treated group. Furthermore, based on microarray result showed the expression of GABRA6, NGF, JAKMIP1, DRD3, STAT6, NF-κβ, SLC6A3 and IL-1RN were significantly identified based on the top 10 of DEGs (p-value < 0.05), Gene Ontology (p-value < 0.05) and biological pathways using KEGG pathways analysis (p-value < 0.05). The key regulated pathways such as cAMP signaling pathway, Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, B-cell receptor signaling pathway and Fc gamma R-mediated phagocytosis were associated with the improvement of neurological behavior in the ischemic stroke rat model. In brief, this study provides new knowledge regarding the mechanism of BEF-preconditioned NSCs therapy to treat ischemic stroke based on the significant main expression of genes using microarray analysis.
- PublicationPrevalence of sarcopenia, empty nest, depressive symptoms and its association with diet quality among older adults with low socioeconomic status in Kelantan(2022-08)Aging itself increases the risk of poor diet quality among older adults due to chronic disease, psychosocial problems, physical limitations and loneliness. Older adults with low socioeconomic status are at higher risk of health problems. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess the association between sarcopenia, empty nest and depressive symptoms with diet quality among older adults with low socioeconomic status. A total of 293 older adults in five districts in Kelantan namely Pasir Mas, Bachok, Tumpat, Kota Bharu and Machang were recruited in the study. Study subjects who fulfilled the inclusion criteria (aged 60 years and above, low education level, B40 group, have no health problems that will limit ability to perform physical fitness tests) were selected through convenience sampling method. Data on socio-demography, anthropometry, body composition, medical history, blood pressure, depressive symptoms, empty nest, diet history and sarcopenia were obtained through interview administered method. Most of the subjects were married (69.6%), are of Malay ethnicity (100%) and has income less than RM900 (91.5%). The prevalence of empty nest was 30.7%. Almost half of the subjects were underweight (48.8%). The prevalence of sarcopenia and severe sarcopenia were 22.2% and 18.8% respectively. The prevalence of high risk of depressive symptoms is 28.3%. Both men and women did not meet the recommendation for daily energy intake. Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score revealed that 42% of the subjects had poor diet quality, 57% need improvement in their diet and only 1% had good diet quality. HEI score was significantly higher in subject with no sarcopenia as compared to those who were sarcopenic and severe sarcopenic. Binary logistic regression revealed that subjects with high cholesterol were 2.4 times more likely to exhibit poor diet quality than those with normal cholesterol level (95% CI: 1.107, 5.209; p-value: 0.027). Increasing Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score was associated with a reduction in the likelihood of exhibiting poor diet quality (OR:0.780; 95%CI: 0.624-0.974; p-value:0.028). In conclusion, the prevalence of sarcopenia, empty nest, and subjects with high risk of depressive symptoms among the study subjects were considerably high. The dietary intake among older adults is also worrying especially regarding fruits and vegetables intake. Thus, nutrition interventions especially in increasing knowledge and skills of older adults to ensure healthy eating are essential to help older adults with low socioeconomic status to improve their nutritional status for reducing risk of sarcopenia and chronic diseases.
- PublicationLeachate treatment using oil palm frond activated carbon embedded with ferric oxide nanoparticles(2021-08-01)This study aims to analyze the potential of oil palm frond activated carbon embedded with iron oxide nanoparticles (OPFAC-Fe) in removing humic acids (HAs) from stabilized leachate by the parameter of COD, colour and UV254. The raw oil palm frond (OPF) is activated with phosphoric acid (ratio of 1:3, 400 °C), followed by oxidationand embedding of ferric ions (Fe3+). The high surface area of 719.29 m2/g and numerous active sites were obtained on the OPFAC-Fe surface. The batch study indicates that the adsorption capacities (qmax,exp) of COD, colour and UV254 increased to 321.00 mg/g, 592.78 mg/g and 0.76 mg/g in the application of OPFAC-Fe. Isotherm model found the HAsdistributed in monolayer with a maximum adsorption capacity of 666.67 mg/g and favourable RL of 0.33 (0