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Purpose: This study aimed to assess the impact of the Nursing Spiritual Care Module on the competence of nurses in providing spiritual care in the context of Malaysia. Method: This study employed an experimental design and involved a total of 122 nurses, with 59 in the experimental group and 63 in the control group. Participants were selected from palliative care wards associated with Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia. Nurses in the experimental group underwent a two-week educational module on nursing spiritual care, while nurses in the control group attended a single lecture on spiritual care provided by the hospital. Results: The results indicated no significant differences in sociodemographic characteristics between the two groups. A significant difference in spiritual care competence within the intervention group and the control group over time (p-value = 0.001), between the two groups (p-value = 0.038), and in the interaction between time and group (p-value = 0.001). Conclusion: The Nursing Spiritual Care Module is crucial in aiding nurses and healthcare professionals in cultivating the appropriate and wholesome attitudes and practices necessary to address the spiritual needs of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Pharmacy students should be eHealth literate by being skilful in searching, evaluating and applying online health information. Mobile health applications should be utilised when making clinical decisions to achieve optimal patient care with the ever-changing pharmacy practice. This study aims to explore the eHealth literacy and mobile health application utilisation amongst pharmacy undergraduates.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from March to April 2021. An online survey, consisting of socio-demographic characteristics, Internet use, eHealth Literacy Scale and mobile health application utilisation, was distributed amongst pharmacy undergraduates in public and private universities in Malaysia. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance test, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test.Results: A total of 415 participants completed the survey (response rate    =    82.5%). The median eHealth Literacy Scale score (out of 40) was 31.0    ±    3.0 (interquartile range). More than one-third of participants (34.7%) were found to have low eHealth literacy. Many lacked confidence in making health decisions from online information (42.4%) and skills in distinguishing between high-quality and low-quality health resources (35.2%). Only 70.4% of the participants had mobile health applications installed on their smartphones and/or tablets. Some students felt that they were neither knowledgeable nor skilful enough to utilise mobile health applications (24.8%), whereas 23.9% were unaware of the mobile health applications available.Conclusion: In summary, the eHealth literacy of Malaysian pharmacy students can be further enhanced by incorporating eHealth literacy-focused programmes into the curriculum. Moreover, pharmacy students' mobile health application utilisation can be improved through increased awareness and support from universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stock price prediction is one of the major challenges for investors who participate in the stock markets. Therefore, different methods have been explored by practitioners and academicians to predict stock price movement. Artificial intelligence models are one of the methods that attracted many researchers in the field of financial prediction in the stock market. This study investigates the prediction of the daily stock prices for Commerce International Merchant Bankers (CIMB) using technical indicators in a NARX neural network model. The methodology employs comprehensive parameter trails for different combinations of input variables and different neural network designs. The study seeks to investigate the optimal artificial neural networks (ANN) parameters and settings that enhance the performance of the NARX model. Therefore, extensive parameter trails were studied for various combinations of input variables and NARX neural network configurations. The proposed model is further enhanced by preprocessing and optimising the NARX model's input and output parameers. The prediction performance is assessed based on the mean squared error (MSE), R-squared, and hit rate. The performance of the proposed model is compared with other models, and it is shown that the utilisation of technical indicators with the NARX neural network improves the accuracy of one-step-ahead prediction for CIMB stock in Malaysia. The performance of the proposed model is further improved by optimising the input data and neural network parameters. The improved prediction of stock prices could help investors increase their returns from investment in stock markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Thermal stress causes reduction in the open circuit voltage of photovoltaic (PV) modules which results in a reduction in overall power generation. Photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) collectors have been used to mitigate this issue by providing both cooling of the cell temperature and yielding thermal energy in the same space. However, the implementation of PV/T systems in the industry is still lacking and requires further innovative solutions to achieve higher electrical and thermal efficiencies. In this article, a case study experimental and parametric analysis of a PV/T system with nano‐phase change material and nanofluid, as the heat transfer fluid, is presented. The system was tested in Bangi, Malaysia and the findings have been compared with previous studies in the literature. The findings of the evaluation show average and peak overall PV/T efficiencies of 61.6% and 77.8%, respectively. Moreover, the electrical efficiency of the PV and PV/T averaged at 9.9% and 13.1%, respectively. The main reason for the drop in the PV module was its average cell temperature which was around 45.6°C, while the PV/T's average cell temperature reached 39.2°C. Finally, the average thermal efficiency of the PV/T was around 48.5% when the mass flowrate was 0.175 kg/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Perceptions and levels of understanding of spiritual care vary among nurses, which may affect their competency to meet the patient's spiritual needs. Therefore, determining nurses' perception of spiritual care is the first important step in addressing the spiritual needs of patients, and may also help nursing management in developing spiritual care education and training programs. Purpose: This study aimed to assess the competence of Malaysian nurses toward providing spiritual care and identify the relationship between nurses' spiritual care competence and their sociodemographic factors. Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design to assess nurses' competence in spiritual care by using a simple random sampling method which involved 271 staff nurses from a public hospital in Northeast of Peninsular Malaysia. Spiritual care competence scale in Bahasa Malaysia version was used for data collection. Data analysis was performed using descriptive (frequency, percent, mean, standard deviation) and inferential (Chi-square and Pearson's correlation test) statistics. Results: This study showed that 69.7% of staff nurses had an average level of competence toward providing spiritual care for the patients (M=95.44, SD=4.34). The highest mean difference among the domains was personal support and patients counseling (MD=5.789), while the lowest mean difference was assessment and implementation of spiritual care (MD=1.258). Furthermore, there was no significant relationship between spiritual care competence and sociodemographic factors (gender, age, marital status, educational level, nurses' experience, race, religion, and previous participation in training spiritual care programs). Conclusion: The majority of nurses have an average level of competence toward providing spiritual care. There is no significant relationship between nurses' spiritual care competence and sociodemographic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nursing competency is an integral part of providing patients with spiritual care. The aim of this study was to validate the translation of the spiritual care competence (SCC) scale to the Malay language version. Methods: The cross-section study design applicable to the SCCS-M self-report questionnaire. Data were collected from staff nurses at the hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia. A total of 270 nurses participated in this study. Spiritual care competence was assessed with the 27-item SCC-M. Standard forward--backward translation was performed to translate the English version of the SCC into the Malay version (SCC-M). All the participants completed the SCC-M. Results: The initial measurement models tested (6-factor models) did not result in a good fit to the data. Subsequent investigation of the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results recommended some modifications, including adding correlations between the item residuals within the same latent variable. These modifications resulted in acceptable fit indices for the 6-factor model: root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .050, comparative fit index (CFI) = .900, Tucker--Lewis index (TLI) = .885, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .065. The final measurement models comprised all 27 SCC-M items, which had significant factor loadings of more than .40. The composite reliability was .696-.853 for 6-factors model. Conclusions: These results suggest that the subscales in 6-factor SCC-M model are unique, the factors do not overlap much, and each factor explains different variance than the other factors. Therefore, the translated version of the SCC-M was valid and reliable for assessing the level of spiritual care competence among hospital nurses in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temperature rise in photovoltaic cells causing drop in their open-circuit voltage is a serious issue to be dealt with. A wide range of cooling techniques have been proposed by researchers due to its positive results on electrical efficiency during operation. One of the prominent techniques in the field is using a hybrid photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) design which in turns utilizes a working fluid to extract the heat from the collector. Various PV/T designs have been proposed, most prominently nanofluid and nanofluid with nano-PCM-based PV/T. This paper aims to evaluate the two techniques of cooling a grid-connected PV system and examines the systems electrical and combined efficiency, in addition to performing exergy analysis. The two systems are experimentally tested for outdoors conditions in Bangi, Malaysia. The results show the two systems achieving highest electrical exergies of 73 and 74.52 for nanofluid and nanofluid with nano-PCM, respectively. Both systems achieved higher exergies than water-cooled and conventional GCPV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peripheral ameloblastoma is an extraosseus type, rare form of ameloblastoma that proliferates on the soft tissue of tooth bearing region. It is usually an exophytic odontogenic tumour that exhibits with either smooth or irregular surface and is mainly located in the mandibular region namely the gingival area. This lesion is mainly limited by the periosteum but a larger lesion can have features of bony marginal saucerization as well as displacement of teeth. We hereby report a case of recurring peripheral ameloblastoma on the mandibular left premolar region in a 37 year-old Malay gentleman seen at the Kulliyyah of Dentistry, International Islamic University Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines a population of Plutella xylostella from the Melaka region of Malaysia which evolved resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki in the field. Testing of the alteration of the binding of Cry1A toxins to larval midgut binding sites as a possible mechanism of resistance; Evaluation of maternal effects, sex linkage and dominance.

Dissolved oxygen (DO) is an important indicator of river health for environmental engineers and ecological scientists to understand the state of river health. This study aims to evaluate the reliability of four feature selector algorithms i.e., Boruta, genetic algorithm (GA), multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) to select the best suited predictor of the applied water quality (WQ) parameters; and compare four tree-based predictive models, namely, random forest (RF), conditional random forests (cForest), RANdom forest GEneRator (Ranger), and XGBoost to predict the changes of dissolved oxygen (DO) in the Klang River, Malaysia. The total features including 15 WQ parameters from monitoring site data and 7 hydrological components from remote sensing data. All predictive models performed well as per the features selected by the algorithms XGBoost and MARS in terms applied statistical evaluators. Besides, the best performance noted in case of XGBoost predictive model among all applied predictive models when the feature selected by MARS and XGBoost algorithms, with the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) values of 0.84 and 0.85, respectively, nonetheless the marginal performance came up by Boruta-XGBoost model on in this scenario. [Display omitted] • Satellite and site hydrometeorological data are used for water quality prediction. • River dissolved oxygen (DO) was predicted within tropical environment case study. • Hybrid tree-based artificial intelligence models are developed for the DO prediction. • Several feature selection approaches are integrated to optimize the input parameters. • The proposed methodology is provided a robust technology for DO prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the link of corporate sustainability practices towards financial performance remains an area of interest to many scholars. But still, the Islamic perspective of the nexus is over sighted. In this vein, the main objective of this study is to inquire about the nexus of corporate sustainability practices towards financial performance from an Islamic perspective. However, the major challenge in this regard is the unavailability of an Islamic corporate sustainability index. To cope with the challenge, this study developed a novel Islamic corporate sustainability practices index and aligned it with sustainable development goals for greater generalizability and better financial performance. The study collected 10 years of panel data (2009–2018) for 16 Islamic banks in Malaysia and 12 Islamic banks in Indonesia. Panel corrected standard errors regression technique was used to analyse panel data. Results were first generated on the combined dataset including both Malaysia and Indonesia, and then from individual countries' perspectives to obtain a holistic point of view. Furthermore, results are also generated on Islamic corporate sustainability practices as a formative factor as well as a reflective factor indicating (environmental, economic and social) dimensions. Results of panel corrected standard errors regression analysis show that Islamic corporate suitability practices as a formative factor have a significant positive impact on financial performance from the combined as well as the separate dataset from Malaysia and Indonesia. However, results of the reflective factors of Islamic corporate sustainability practices show variation in the combined (Malaysian and Indonesian) dataset. These results provide insights into various policy formulations at Malaysian and Indonesian Islamic banks in specific. And in general, these results insights into the world Islamic banking industry for ensuring better compliance with sustainable development goals aimed at achieving greater financial performance. More importantly, this study may serve as a launching pad for the development of the global Islamic banking corporate sustainability practices index. • The Islamic perspective of the nexus between corporate sustainability practices and financial performance is over-sighted. • Developed Islamic corporate sustainability practices index (ICSPI) aligned with SDGs toward greater financial performance. • ICSP as a formative factor has a positive impact on firm performance on datasets from Malaysia and Indonesia. • ICSP as a reflective factor show variation in its impact on firm performance in the combined Malaysia and Indonesia dataset. • This study may serve as a base for the development of the global Islamic corporate sustainability practices index (GICSPI) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Women who develop gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and to reduce this risk the women have to adopt healthy behaviour changes. Although previous studies have explored the challenges and facilitators to initiate behaviour change among women with GDM, there is limited data from Malaysian women. Thus, this study will explore the factors affecting the uptake of healthy behaviour changes and the use of digital technology among women and their healthcare providers (HCPs) to support healthy behaviour changes in women with GDM., Methods and Analysis: The study will be modelled according to the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation and Behaviour and Behaviour Change Wheel techniques, and use the DoTTI framework to identify needs, solutions and testing of a preliminary mobile app, respectively. In phase 1 (design and development), a focus group discussion (FGDs) of 5-8 individuals will be conducted with an estimated 60 women with GDM and 40 HCPs (doctors, dietitians and nurses). Synthesised data from the FGDs will then be combined with content from an expert committee to inform the development of the mobile app. In phase 2 (testing of early iterations), a preview of the mobile app will undergo alpha testing among the team members and the app developers, and beta testing among 30 women with GDM or with a history of GDM, and 15 HCPs using semi-structured interviews. The outcome will enable us to optimise an intervention using the mobile app as a diabetes prevention intervention which will then be evaluated in a randomised controlled trial., Ethics and Dissemination: The project has been approved by the Malaysia Research Ethics Committee. Informed consent will be obtained from all participants. Outcomes will be presented at both local and international conferences and submitted for publications in peer-reviewed journals., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Objectives: To compare the sociodemography, disease characteristics and hypertension self-care profiles and to determine the factors influencing Hypertension Self-Care Profiles (HTN-SCP) in two populations in primary care settings from Singapore and Malaysia., Design: Cross-sectional, cross national., Setting: Multi-centre, primary care clinics Malaysia and Singapore., Participants: 1123 adults with hypertension enrolled and analysed., Primary and Secondary Outcome Measures: Comparison between sociodemography, disease characteristics and the mean scores of HTN-SCP domains (behaviour, motivation and self-efficacy) and the factors influencing hypertension self-care., Results: 1123 adults with hypertension attending primary care clinics in Malaysia and Singapore were involved. The participants' mean age was 63.6 years (SD 9.7) in Singapore and 60.4 (SD 9.1) in Malaysia. Most of the participants in Singapore had tertiary education (22.3%) compared with Malaysia (13.0%), p<0.001. A higher proportion of participants from Singapore had controlled blood pressure (74.6%) compared with Malaysia (33.8%), p<0.001. The mean total score of HTN-SCP was significantly higher among Singapore participants compared with Malaysia participants 190 (SD 28) versus 184 (SD 23) (p<0.001). Similarly, the mean score for motivation domain 67 (SD 10) versus 65 (SD 9), followed by self-efficacy score 65 (SD 11) versus 62 (SD 9) and behaviour score (58 SD 9 vs 56 SD 9) were higher among Singapore participants. In both countries, the factors which influenced higher HTN-SCP mean scores across all domains were being Indian and had tertiary education., Conclusions: The study population in Singapore had a higher HTN-SCP mean score compared with Malaysia. The common factors influencing higher HTN-SCP mean scores at both study sites were ethnicity and level of education. Future intervention to improve self-care among people with hypertension may need to be tailored to their behaviour, motivation and self-efficacy levels., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Introduction: Self-care has been shown to improve clinical outcome of hypertension. Gauging the level of self-care among patients with hypertension enables the design of their personalized care plans. This study aimed to determine the self-care profiles and its determinants among patients with hypertension in the Malaysian primary care setting., Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted between 1 October 2016-30 April 2017 in three primary care clinics in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. All adults aged 18 years and above with hypertension for at least 6 months were recruited with a systematic random sampling of 1:2 ratio. The participants were assisted in the administration of the structured questionnaire, which included socio-demographic information, medical information and the Hypertension Self-Care Profile (HTN SCP) tool. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 20.0. Multiple linear regression was performed to determine the determinants for self-care., Results: The mean age of the participants was 59.5 (SD10.2) years old. There were more women (52.5%) and most were Malays (44.0%) follow by Chinese (34%) and Indians (21%). Majority (84.2%) had secondary or primary school level of education. A third (30.7%) had a family history of hypertension. The mean total HTN-SCP score was 124.2 (SD 22.8) out of 180. The significant determinants that influenced the HTN-SCP scores included being men (B-4.5, P-value0.008), Chinese ethnicity (B-14.7, P-value<0.001), primary level education/no formal school education level (B-15.7, P-value<0.001), secondary level education (B-9.2, P-value<0.001) and family history of hypertension (B 4.4, P-value 0.014)., Conclusions: The overall hypertension self-care profile among patients in this multi-ethnic country was moderate. Being men, Chinese, lower education level and without family history of hypertension were associated with lower hypertension self-care profile score. Healthcare intervention programmes to address self-care should target this group of patients., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: Blended learning (BL) is a learning innovation that applies the concept of face-to-face learning and online learning. However, examples of these innovations are still limited in the teaching of postgraduate education within the field of family medicine. Malaysian postgraduate clinical training, is an in-service training experience and face-to-face teaching with the faculty members can be challenging. Given this, we took the opportunity to apply BL in their training. This study provides an exploration of the perceptions of the educators and students toward the implementation of BL., Methods: A qualitative approach was employed using focus group discussions (FGD) and in-depth interviews (IDI) at an academic centre that trains family physicians. Twelve trainees, all of whom were in their hospital specialty's rotations and five faculty members were purposively selected. Three FGDs among the trainees, one FGD and two IDIs among the faculty members were conducted using a semi-structured topic guide. Data were collected through audio-recorded interviews, transcribed verbatim and checked for accuracy. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data., Results: There were four main themes that emerged from the analysis. Both educators and trainees bill the perspective that BL encouraged continuity in learning. They agreed that BL bridges the gap in student-teacher interactions. Although educators perceived that BL is in concordance with trainees learning style, trainees felt differently about this. Some educators and trainees perceived BL to be an extra burden in teaching and learning., Conclusion: This study highlights a mix positive and negative perceptions of BL by educators and trainees. BL were perceived positively for continuity in learning and student-teacher interaction. However, educator and learner have mismatched perception of learning style. BL was also perceived to cause extra burden to both educators and learners. Integrating BL to a traditional learning curriculum is still a challenge. By knowing the strengths of BL in this setting, family medicine trainees in Malaysia can use it to enhance their current learning experience. Future study can investigate different pedagogical designs that suit family medicine trainees and educators in promoting independent learning in postgraduate training.

Background: Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt) crystal (Cry) toxins are expressed in various transgenic crops and are also used as sprays in integrated pest management and organic agricultural systems. The diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella L.) is a major worldwide pest of crucifer crops and one that has readily acquired field resistance to a broad range of insecticides., Results: Selection of a subpopulation of the P. xylostella SERD4 population with the pyrethroid deltamethrin increased resistance to both deltamethrin and Cry1Ac relative to an unselected subpopulation. Selection of a second subpopulation with the Bt toxin Cry1Ac also increased resistance to both Cry1Ac and deltamethrin. A complementation test between the Cry1Ac-selected and deltamethrin-selected subpopulations suggested the presence of a common genetic locus or loci that control resistance to both insecticides. A piperonyl butoxide analogue with potent inhibitory activity against insect esterases significantly increased the toxicity of Cry1Ac and deltamethrin against the respective resistant subpopulations, but showed no such synergism with the unselected subpopulation of SERD4., Conclusion: Selection of one resistance phenotype resulted in the simultaneous selection of the other. This phenomenon could be due to a single mechanism acting against both classes of insecticide or to genetically linked, but separate, mechanisms.

Extracts of six selected Malaysian plants with a reputation of usefulness in treating diabetes were examined for alpha-amylase inhibition using an in vitro model. Inhibitory activity studied by two different protocols (with and without pre-incubation) showed that Phyllanthus amarus hexane extract had alpha-amylase inhibitory properties. Hexane and dichloromethane extracts of Anacardium occidentale, Lagerstroemia speciosa, Averrhoa bilimbiPithecellobium jiringa and Parkia speciosa were not active when tested without pre-incubation. Extraction and fractionation of Phyllanthus amarus hexane extract led to the isolation of dotriacontanyl docosanoate, triacontanol and a mixture of oleanolic acid and ursolic acid. Dotriacontanyl docosanoate and the mixture of oleanolic acid and ursolic acid are reported from this plant species for the first time. All compounds were tested in the alpha-amylase inhibition assay and the results revealed that the oleanolic acid and ursolic acid (2:1) mixture was a potent alpha-amylase inhibitor with IC(50)=2.01 microg/ml (4.41 microM) and that it contributes significantly to the alpha-amylase inhibition activity of the extract. Three pure pentacyclic triterpenoids, oleanolic acid, ursolic acid and lupeol were shown to inhibit alpha-amylase.

Radium concentrations in 470 samples of the various types of waste from oil and gas industries were analysed using gamma spectrometers. The results showed that the radium concentration varied within a wide range. The highest mean 226Ra and 228Ra concentrations of 114,300 and 130,120 Bq/kg, respectively, were measured in scales. Overall, 75% of the waste, mostly sludge and extraction residue lies within the normal range of radium concentration in soils of Malaysia. However, some platform sludge can have radium concentration up to 560 Bq/kg.