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Most food poisoning outbreaks are caused by consumers' poor knowledge, attitude, perception, and behaviour in relation to food safety. A valid and reliable tool is thus needed to measure these factors among the consumers. A total of 79 respondents participated in this pilot survey using convenient sampling, and participants self-completed the questionnaire given. Item analysis was conducted to determine the difficulty and discrimination indices of 40 items involved in knowledge construction. Construct validity and reliability were performed on 33 items which measured attitudes, preventive practices, and perceptions. Item analysis showed that more than 80% of respondents answered 19 items correctly. The discrimination index revealed that 16 items scored below 0.20. The Average Variance Extraction for all latent constructs, namely attitude, practice, and perception met acceptable threshold values of 0.527, 0.517, and 0.535, respectively. The Fornell-Larcker criterion suggested that three latent constructs were acceptable for discriminant validity. The internal consistency and reliability for all scaled items in each construct were good, with Cronbach's alpha values of more than 0.7 (0.820, 0.809, and 0.799 for attitude, practice, and perception, respectively). In conclusion, the present work indicated that the knowledge, attitude, practice, and perception (KAP2) questionnaire used could be a valid and reliable measure to evaluate consumer's knowledge, attitude, preventive practice, and perception on food poisoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research was to screen and isolate fucoidan from Malaysian seaweeds and subsequently determine its antioxidant capacity. A screening test employing a colorimetric method was conducted on five types of Malaysian brown and red seaweeds. It was found that Sargassum binderi contained the highest fucoidan content (6.16 ± 0.08%). Thus, fucoidan was isolated from S. binderi (yield 7.5%, purity 89.63%) for the determination of its antioxidant capacity. The isolated fucoidan was identified using high performance anion exchange chromatography (HPAEC) and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infra-red (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The antioxidant assays performed were total phenolic content (TPC), free-radical scavenging activity (DPPH), reducing power, superoxide anion scavenging activity (SOA) and hydroxyl radical scavenging activity ( OH). The antioxidant capacity of the extracted fucoidan ( F sar ) was compared with those of a commercial food-grade fucoidan ( F ysk ) and of BHA, BHT and ascorbic acid. All the antioxidant assays performed showed either F sar has significantly higher ( p < 0.05) or do not differ significantly ( p > 0.05) in activities compared to that of F ysk . At the same time, both F sar and F ysk showed significant ( p < 0.05) antioxidant capacity in terms of superoxide anion and hydroxyl radical scavenging activities compared to those of the synthetic antioxidants. This shows that F sar has the potential to be commercialised as a functional food product or as bioingredients with high antioxidative properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]