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Mango is one of the six important fruits crops besides banana, watermelon, apple, orange, and grapes in the world. Of late, insidious fruit rot (IFR) has been of increasing concern among mango growers in Malaysia as this disease does not exhibit visible symptoms but has the potential to reduce the quality of the fruit. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to evaluate and correlate soil fertility status between mango orchards with and without the IFR incidence by comparing content of selected soil nutrients. The soil samples were collected from orchards planted with Harumanis, a mango variety, with and without IFR incidence. The samples were taken at a depth of 0–30 cm, crushed and then sieved using a 2-mm mesh size prior to laboratory analysis. The analyses followed standard practice. The results showed a significant difference between EC, total C, total N, C/N ratio, and exchangeable bases (Ca, Mg, K and Na) between the soil samples from Harumanis orchards with and without IFR incidences. Although soil nutrient content was higher than the optimal range for Harumanis cultivation in both sites, synergistic and antagonistic effects were discovered mostly in soil samples from Harumanis orchard with IFR incidence. Studies show that application of Ca and K fertilizers can suppress IFR incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the quality of air in the environment has been impacted by the industry. It is important to make sure our ambient air especially in an indoor environment is clean from contaminating particles or harmful gases. Therefore, the air quality inside the indoor environment should be monitored regularly. One of the major problems, when a particular environment has been contaminated by harmful gases, is finding the source of the emission. If the indoor environment has been contaminated by a harmful source it should be instantly localized and eliminated to prevent severe casualties. In this paper, we propose the utilization of synthetic data generated by the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) approach to train the Deep Neural Network (DNN) model called CFD-DNN to perform gas source localization in an indoor environment. The model is capable to locate the contaminated source within a small area of an indoor environment. A total of 361 datasets with different locations of contaminated source release have been obtained using the CFD approach. The obtained dataset was divided into training and testing datasets. The training dataset was used for the model training process while the testing dataset is fed into the model to test model reliability to predict the gas source location. The Euclidian distance equation was used to measure the distance error between the actual and predicted location of the source. The result shows that the model is capable to locate the gas source within a minimum and maximum error of 0.03m to 0.46m respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the spatial variation of the physico-chemical characteristics of lateritic soil profiles (up to 60 cm in depth) in a sloping mango orchard (1 ha; slope gradient = 6 %) in North Peninsular Malaysia. The study revealed that horizontal variation for the exchangeable Al and Mg, and the particle size fractions in the topmost soil layer (0-15 cm) within the orchard was higher than their vertical variation within the soil profile, and that, in contrast, the opposite trend was found for the total N, cation exchange capacity, and base saturation. Furthermore, preferential accumulation of soil organic matter and nutrients such as total N and available P were found at the lower (LS) and/or middle (MS) slope positions than the upper (US) one, while the lower clay content with the higher clay activity index was observed at LS compared to MS and US. These results suggest that these variations occur by the scattered accumulation of fertilizer-derived nutrients (i.e. N, P, K, and Mg) in the surface soil layers and the translocation of the surface litter, soil and nutrients towards the downslope in addition to enhanced eluviation process with the residual of clays at the downslope in the sloping orchard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The ideal surgical management for tibial eminence avulsion fractures remains controversial with varying approach, methods of fixation and post-operative regimes reported throughout literature. The current systematic review and meta-analysis aims to compare between the different approaches, methods of fixation and post-operative regimes for tibial eminence fractures., Methods: The systematic review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. A search was conducted using PubMed, MEDLINE and CINAHL databases. The keywords used were "anterior cruciate ligament", "tibial spine" or "tibial eminence" and "fracture" or "avulsion". All original human studies that reported the surgical outcomes of tibial eminence fractures were included. Individual patient data meta-analysis was performed., Results: 48 studies with 1367 patients were included. Arthroscopic fixation resulted in significantly greater stability in terms of anterior drawer test (p = 0.018) and Lachman's test (p = 0.042), as compared to open fixation, though there was no significant difference for pivot shift test. There was no significant difference identified in functional scores and activity, including Lysholm score, IKDC subjective score, Tegner score and return to sports. Suture fixation had significantly increased stability compared to screw fixation, in terms of anterior drawer test (p = 0.001) and Lachman's test (p = 0.001), though no significant difference was identified for pivot shift test. Significantly better subjective scores and return to activity were also noted for suture fixation, in terms of Lysholm score (p = 0.008), IKDC subjective score (p = 0.001) and Tegner score (p = 0.001), though no significant difference was identified for return to sports., Conclusion: Arthroscopic and suture fixation had significantly superior outcomes when compared to open and screw fixation. Arthroscopic fixation resulted in significantly improved stability of the knee as compared to open fixation, though no significant difference was identified in terms of functional knee scores and return to activity. Suture fixation resulted in significantly improved stability of the knee and functional knee screws as compared to screw fixation., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Aims: This study presents a protocol for the Pharmacy Integrated Community Care (PICC) program, meticulously designed to enhance Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels and augment knowledge about diabetes mellitus (DM) among individuals diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in the Sarawak State of Malaysia., Methods: From 1 May to December 31, 2023, a prospective, multicenter, parallel-design randomised controlled trial will be conducted with two groups, each consisting of 47 participants. The intervention group will receive a structured, four-session group-based program guided by experienced pharmacists, focusing on medication adherence and diabetes management. The control group will follow the standard Diabetes Mellitus Adherence Clinic program. The primary outcomes of this study encompass enhancements in knowledge regarding diabetes medication management and adherence, followed by subsequent changes in HbA1c levels., Conclusions: The successful implementation of the PICC program holds promise for enhancing health outcomes in the T2DM population, potentially leading to more effective diabetes management initiatives and better health practices in the community., Trial Registration Clinicaltrialsgov Identifier: NCT05106231., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Background  Because of cost effectiveness, most of the laboratories in India estimate low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels with the Friedewald's formula. There were many shortcomings of the Friedewald's formula. Recently, Martin and colleagues have derived a new formula for calculating LDL-C. The present study was undertaken to calculate LDL-C using various formulae (Friedewald's formula, Anandaraja's formula, and Martin's formula) and to compare directly measured LDL-C (D-LDL-C) with calculated LDL-C at various ranges of triglyceride (TG) concentration. Materials and Methods  The present study compared LDL-C measured by Martin's formula, Friedewald's formula, and Anandaraja's formula with D-LDL-C in 280 outpatient fasting samples between the age groups of 18 and 50 years. Depending on the TG values, study samples were divided into four groups. Group 1: less than 200 mg/dL; Group 2: 200 to 300 mg/dL; Group 3: 300 to 400 mg/dL; and Group 4: more than 400 mg/dL. Results  Martin's formula shows highest correlation with r -value of 0.9979 compared with Friedewald's (0.9857) and Anandaraja's (0.9683) r -values. The mean difference was least for Martin's formula (0.31 ± 3.53) compared with other formulae. Among all the groups, percentage of error was least for Martin's formula (0.23%). Martin's LDL-C shows highest concordance (90.90%) compared with Friedewald's (79.60%) and Anandaraja's formulae (82.90%). Conclusion  Among all the groups, Martin's formula shows highest correlation, least percentage of error, highest concordance, and least mean differences. At all TG levels, Martin's formula is the best formula compared with the Friedewald's formula and Anandaraja's formula., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest None declared, (The Indian Association of Laboratory Physicians. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).)

For decades, Metal oxide (MOX) gas sensors have been commercially available and used in various applications such as the Smart City, gas monitoring, and safety due to advantages such as high sensitivity, a high detection range, fast reaction time, and cost-effectiveness. However, several factors affect the sensing ability of MOX gas sensors. This article presents the results of a study on the cross-sensitivity of MOX gas sensors toward ambient temperature and humidity. A gas sensor array consisting of temperature and humidity sensors and four different MOX gas sensors (MiCS-5524, GM-402B, GM-502B, and MiCS-6814) was developed. The sensors were subjected to various relative gas concentrations, temperatures (from 16 °C to 30 °C), and humidity levels (from 75% to 45%), representing a typical indoor environment. The results proved that the gas sensor responses were significantly affected by the temperature and humidity. The increased temperature and humidity levels led to a decreased response for all sensors, except for MiCS-6814, which showed the opposite response. Hence, this work proposed regression models for each sensor, which can correct the gas sensor response drift caused by the ambient temperature and humidity variations. The models were validated, and the standard deviations of the corrected sensor response were found to be 1.66 kΩ, 13.17 kΩ, 29.67 kΩ, and 0.12 kΩ, respectively. These values are much smaller compared to the raw sensor response (i.e., 18.22, 24.33 kΩ, 95.18 kΩ, and 2.99 kΩ), indicating that the model provided a more stable output and minimised the drift. Overall, the results also proved that the models can be used for MOX gas sensors employed in the training process, as well as for other sets of gas sensors.