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- PublicationAssessing Weight Management Knowledge Among Undergraduate Students at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian Campus, Kelantan(2025-01)This study focuses on undergraduate students at Universiti Sains Malaysia's Kubang Kerian Campus in Kelantan's knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) about healthy weight control. 169 students in all, representing a range of demographic backgrounds, took part. A validated questionnaire measuring attitudes toward healthy eating, knowledge of nutrition, and compliance with suggested dietary behaviors was used to gather data. According to the results, 90.53% of participants knew a lot about nutrition, and 93.49% had favorable opinions about eating healthily. None of the subjects received a "good" practice score in spite of these favorable results, indicating a significant discrepancy between awareness and actual action. While gender, academic major, and year of study did not substantially correlate with KAP levels, statistical analysis revealed a significant correlation between ethnicity and KAP levels (p = 0.031). Furthermore, there was a slight, non-significant positive correlation (r = 0.089, p = 0.25) between BMI and KAP, and there was no significant relationship between BMI status and KAP levels (p = 0.086). These findings highlight the significance of implementing focused interventions to close the knowledge-practice gap, especially those that take cultural influences on eating habits into account. 8
- PublicationUnderstanding the reasons behind inadequate daily intake of fruits and vegetables in final year nutrition and dietetics students: a qualitative research(2025-01)Fruits and vegetables (FV) are a vital part of a healthy diet. According to the Malaysian Dietary Guidelines (2010), individuals should consume at least five servings of FV daily. This equates to two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables, echoing the WHO 2003 recommendations. Based on their study area and nature of the degree, the final-year students enrolled in Nutrition and Dietetics programmes are expected to have better eating habits than their peers. However, studies found that students with high nutritional knowledge do not necessarily translate to healthy eating habits due to various factors and challenges. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to understand the reasons behind intake of FV in final-year Nutrition and Dietetics students. Individual interview sessions using Zoom were conducted with 11 female final-year students of the Nutrition (n=7) and Dietetics (n=4) programme. Interview time took approximately an hour per person. The interviews were conducted to uncover the influences, barriers and opinions that influenced their current daily intake of FV. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and checked before the thematic analyses. The themes and subthemes include; the current lack of dietary FV intake, personal perceptions and feelings towards FV intake, limitations in surroundings on eating habits; insufficient FV variety and availability and other barriers to practising healthy eating habits; and suggestions on improving FV intake. In conclusion, the study found that various factors cause participants to have inadequate daily intake of FV.
- PublicationOptimization of brown seaweed flour (kappaphycus alvarezii) to replace gelatin using response surface methodology (RSM) for gummy candy preparation(2025-01)The gummy confectionery industry is showing a growing interest in adding novel ingredients to conventional formulations since consumers are looking for healthier and more nutritious products. Kappaphycus alvarezii is a well-known source of important food hydrocolloids such as carrageenan which acts as gelling agents. Thus, in this study, the interaction effects of independent variables such as seaweed powder (4%, 5% & 6%), sugar (10%, 18% & 26%) and water (62%, 81% & 100%) from the original formulation was investigated to evaluate the optimal gummy candy formulation using the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) based on the texture profile analysis response. Two optimal formulations were obtained from RSM with minimum hardness, lower firmness and stickiness and high springiness attributes. Those optimized samples are gummy candy with (seaweed 4%, water 100%, sugar 26%) and (seaweed 5%, water 81%, sugar 18%). Comparative analyses were conducted between control gummies and these two most optimized samples. Results revealed that seaweed addition significantly increased moisture (56.86%), ash (1.63%), and fibre (0.39%) content while reducing fat (0.04%), and carbohydrate (39.06%) levels. Sensory evaluation indicated that gummies with seaweed were less preferred compared to control samples, with differences noted in texture, taste, and overall acceptability. Mould growth was monitored over three weeks, revealing that all samples remained mould-free in refrigeration, though gummies with seaweed exhibited mould in 3 days. The findings highlight the potential of seaweed-enriched gummies as functional foods, emphasizing the need for further optimization to balance enhanced nutrition with sensory appeal and shelf stability.
- PublicationScreening of the anti-proliferative effects of baicalein and carbon nanodot combination on hela cancer cells(2025-01)This study identifies the anti-proliferative effects of a novel combination therapy using baicalein, a flavonoid, and carbon nanodots (CDs) on HeLa cervical cancer cells. Baicalein, known for its potent anti-cancer properties, has shown limitations in clinical applications due to low bioavailability. Carbon nanodots, with their excellent biocompatibility, solubility, and drug delivery potential, were used as a carrier to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of baicalein. The study evaluated the anti-proliferative effects of the baicalein-carbon nanodot (Bai-CDs) combination in comparison to standalone treatments of baicalein, CDs, and cisplatin on HeLa cells using the MTT assay. Results demonstrated that the combination therapy significantly inhibited cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner with the IC50 69.85 ± 4.145μg/ml and p-value less than 0.05. These findings highlight the potential of the Bai-CDs combination as a new therapeutic strategy for cervical cancer, providing enhanced bioavailability and targeted anti-cancer effects while minimizing adverse outcomes associated with conventional chemotherapy
- PublicationAnticancer effects of apis cerana and heterotrigona itama honeys on temozolomide-resistant glioblastoma cells(2025-01)Glioblastoma is characterized by high aggressiveness and poor prognosis with median survival rate of less than 15 months. Due to the complexity of surgery to remove whole tumour and rapid development of chemoresistance towards temozolomide (TMZ), apitherapy using honey emerges as potential alternative treatment for glioblastoma due to its rich phenolic compounds with high antioxidant properties. However, the difference between Apis cerana honey and Heterotrigona itama honey for anti-glioblastoma effects has not been extensively studied. In this study, the phytochemical composition of A. cerana and H. itama honey were compared using phytochemical screening test and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. Their antioxidant capabilities were also compared using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay. Then, the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values of both honeys on TMZ-resistant glioblastoma cell line (DBTRG-05MG cells) were determined using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, while the analysis of cancer invasiveness and recurrence were determined through scratch assay and clonogenic assay respectively. After that, gene expressions between both honey-treated DBTRG-05MG cells were compared using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to elucidate their effects towards apoptosis (MDM2 gene), metastasis (WNT5A gene) and chemoresistance (YTHDF2 gene). The analysis revealed that A. cerana honey contained higher levels of alkaloid and saponin as compared to H. itama honey, which contributed to its higher antioxidant activity as evidenced via the DPPH assay. This data was also supported by its lower IC50 value (130.5 ± 33.1 mg/mL) than H. itama honey (185.8 ± 27.6 mg/mL) in 72-hour treatment on DBTRG-05MG cells. In contrast, H. itama honey contained higher levels of flavonoid than A. cerana honey. Both honeys shared similar functional groups as indicated in FTIR analysis. A. cerana honey exerted strong inhibitory effect towards invasiveness and migration of DBTRG-05MG cells with its lowest closure percentage up to 72 hours while H. itama honey exerted strong prophylactic effect towards recurrence of DBTRG-05MG cells with its lowest colony number formed. However, there was no significant difference in MDM2, WNT5A and YTHDF2 expressions between honey-treated DBTRG-05MG cells. These findings suggest that A. cerana honey could be more effective in killing TMZ-resistant glioblastoma cells while H. itama honey could be more effective in preventing glioblastoma recurrence. The anticancer effect of each phytochemical in both honeys should be further investigated in future for better elucidation towards apoptotic, metastasis and chemoresistance mechanisms
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- PublicationION exchange equilibria of Copper (II), Nickel (II) and Manganese (II) on the Amberlite IRC 748 ION Exchange Resin(2009-05-01)Malaco Copper Mine at Mengapor, Pahang is planning to treat their low grade copper ores using heap leaching technique. Unfortunately, the pregnant leach solution produced from this leaching is believed to contain impurities which is manganese, nickel, iron and zinc. Therefore, a simulation of this problem is developed by treating the synthetic copper(II), nickel(II) and manganese(II) aqueous solution with selected chelating ion exchange resin Amberlite IRC 748 which has iminodiacetic (IDA) functional group. The results showed that the maximum loading of copper(II) obtained is 47.50 g/l, while maximum loading for nickel(II) and manganese(II) is 2.50 g/l and 10 g/l respectively. Besides, the equilibrium data obtained is better fitted to Langmuir isotherm model. Throughout this study, conclusion could be made that among of these three metal ions, copper is highly selective towards the selected resin.
- PublicationAnalisis Sirah Nabi Saw Dalam Buku Teks Pendidikan Islam Tingkatan Satu Di Malaysia Berdasarkan Manhaj Al-muḥaddithīn(2024-09)Visual dialogue dataset, i.e. VisDial v1.0 includes a wide range of Microsoft Common Objects in Context (MSCOCO) image contents and collected questions via a crowdsourcing marketplace platform (i.e. Amazon Mechanical Turk). The use of existing question history and images no longer contributes to a better understanding of the image context as they do not cover the entire image semantic context. This research proposes the DsDial dataset, which is a context-aware visual dialogue that groups all relevant dialogue histories extracted based on their respective MSCOCO image categories. This research also exploits the overlapping visual context between images via adaptive relevant dialogue history selection during new dataset generation based on the groups of all relevant dialogue histories. It is half of 2.6 million question-answer pairs. Meanwhile, this research proposes Diverse History-Dialog (DS-Dialog) to resolve the missing visual semantic information for each image via context-aware visual attention. The context-aware visual attention includes the question-guided and relevant-dialoguehistory- guided visual attention modules to get the relevant visual context when both have achieved great confidence. The qualitative and quantitative experimental results on the VisDial v1.0 and DsDial datasets demonstrate that the proposed DS-Dialog not only outperforms the existing methods, but also achieves a competitive results by contributing to a better visual semantic extraction. DsDial dataset has proven its significance on LF model as compared to VisDal v1.0. Overall quantitative results show that DS-Dialog with DsDial dataset has achieved the best test scores for recall@1, recall@5, recall@10, mean rank, MRR, and NDCG respectively.
- PublicationModelling of biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and ammoniacal nitrogen for sungai perai basin using hydrodynamic model(2023-05-01)Shortage of clean water has been an issue for an urbanised areas. To overcome the problem, Pulau Pinang tries to find an alternative source of water; and one of the options is Sungai Perai. The river has a large catchment area and is located in Pulau Pinang state boundary however the river was polluted and not suitable to be extracted for domestic consumption. To understand the behaviour of the river, a water quality model was developed for Sungai Perai, Sungai Jarak and Sungai Kulim using InfoWork ICM. Rainfall data and topographical information were use for hydrological analysis; while sampling and demographical information as pollution input for the water quality model. Year 2016 was selected as model event due to data availability. The result of three parameters (BOD, COD and NH4) was used for analysis and TMDL calculation; load duration curve approach was used to estimate TMDL. Based on the analysis, it was observed the concentration of pollutants is highest in March and lowest in November. The concentration was observed to be in relation to seasonal change; as the flow increased, the concentration decreased. The simulation data was used to generate TMDL. It was discovered that pollutant load exceedance about 95% which is the highest during the rainy season and the problematic pollutant is NH4.
- PublicationInfluence of outdoor fine particulate matter (pm2.5) and meteorological factors towards indoor pm2.5 concentration in the classroom with different microenvironment(2024-01-01)Particulate matter (PM2.5) is one of atmospheric particles that has been monitored and sampled could give adverse effects on human health especially towards sensitive groups such including school children. School children spent 80% of their daily life indoor which about 6 to 7 hours at school and mostly in classroom. This study was conducted at six selected schools labeled as S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, and S6 located in Peninsular Malaysia in order to study the effects of outdoor PM2.5 concentrations towards indoor with different microenvironments. The results show that during high particulate event (HPE), average indoor PM2.5 concentrations in S5 and S6 were 64±29 µg/m3 and 59±171 µg/m3 which exceed the permissible 24 hours limit by World Health Organization (WHO), 25 µg/m3 . Indoor meteorological parameters, indoor temperature was exceeding the acceptable range recommended by DOSH in ICOP 2010 which is 23 – 26 ºC. For indoor relative humidity, the measured reading in S1, S3, and S4 was within the acceptable range recommended by DOSH in ICOP 2010 while in S2, S5 and S6, the measured reading was exceeding the acceptable range. Indoor wind speed measured in each school as within the acceptable range recommended by DOSH in ICOP 2010. Irregular shape particle, transition metal particle, fine soot agglomerated particle, agglomeration of many fine particles and flocculant aggregates particles are the particles that found in this study. Results for multiple linear regression show that the best fit model is at school S5 and S6 which during high particulate event (HPE), outdoor PM2.5 and meteorological parameters significantly (p < 0.05) influenced on indoor PM2.5 concentrations with strong value of regression coefficient (R) = 0.948 in S5 and in S6, R = 0.861. Indoor PM2.5 concentrations were influenced by outdoor PM2.5 concentrations which HPE identified give the strongest effects. This supported by morphological properties and chemical composition found in this study.
- PublicationA grid-tied fuel cell multilevel inverter with pq control scheme(2023-10)Recently, sustainable electrical power has captured the attention of the electric generation industry. Renewable Energy helps in reducing global warming as well as environmental pollution. This report will discuss a grid-tied fuel cell multilevel inverter with a PQ control scheme. This project consists of three main components: the Diode clamped multilevel inverter, Fuel cell stack and LCL filter. The fuel cells will produce electricity by a chemical reaction and generate DC power. The multilevel inverter converts DC power to AC power before connecting to the electrical grid. LCL filter circuit is used to reduce harmonic from the inverter. This project can be implemented in households or small offices where users can generate electricity and use it without interruption. It will help to reduce energy generation via fossil fuels, and if implemented by many people, this can positively impact the environment. This project has been carried out in MATLAB/Simulink software. It involved designing a multilevel inverter, fuel cell stack, LCL filter circuit and grid. The fuel cell stack generates 100kW to supply local load while exporting and importing power to the grid through the interfacing inverter, depending on the demands. From simulation of MLI with LCL filter that have been connected to fuel cell stack source, real and reactive power for 1200V 50Hz with 100kW power was obtained and recorded.