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Introduction: Digital pathology encompasses the acquisition, management, sharing and interpretation of pathology information in a digital environment. Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative method to examine scholarly publica- tions including the number of publications, citations, co-authorships, and collaboration network. Aim of this study is to provide a bibliometric analysis of academic documents on digital pathology (DP) from 1991-2021. Methods: The literature on digital pathology were obtained from the Scopus database. Frequency, percentage, data visualisation and citation metric were analysed using Microsoft Excel 365 and VOSviewer. Results: A total of 1848 documents from the Scopus database were analysed. There is a continuous growth of publications on DP with a total of 28330 citations. The United States was the most productive contributor to the publications followed by the United Kingdom and European countries, whilst University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, US produced the most publications. Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging Proceedings of SPIE was the largest source title while the Medical Image Analysis was the most prestigious journal. The keyword analysis suggests that DP research is mainly a medical imaging and engineering research domain with application in the histopathology subject. Conclusion: Digital Pathology research and publications continue to grow and concentrated in the Western countries. The publications focused on the image analysis, machine learning and engineering research domain in histopathology subject. Potential research areas include the implementation, validation of use and impact of DP to the pathology services and health care with exploration in other pathology subjects such as haematology.

Medical schools worldwide employ a variety of strategies in their student selection process due to the large number of academically qualified applicants and the limited places to offer. The selection process is crucial because the accepted candidates shall be able to complete the medical training and eventually will become safe and competent doctors. Multiple mini-interview (MMI) has increasingly been adopted as the preferred method of medical student selection due to its acceptability, feasibility, reliability and validity (1). In MMI, candidates rotate around a series of stations designed to assess cognitive and non-cognitive attributes in a finite time allotment (2). The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) has been conducting MMI since 2017 for selecting undergraduate Doctor of Medicine (MD) students. However, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many challenges and sudden changes medical schools worldwide, including the admission process. In UPM particularly, the usual face-to-face in-person MMI became infeasible due to the social distancing policies resulting from the pandemic.

The social and physical restrictions in the early phase of COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in forced transition into virtual learning worldwide. Modifications of assessment tools also had to be made to suit online conduct. This article aims to share the experience of conducting online objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) using several approaches for preclinical medical students in one of the public universities in Malaysia. It summarises the challenges faced by the involved parties, as well as the solution and recommendation should similar situation arises in the future.

Background: Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are used for measuring the student’s progress, and they should be analyzed properly to guarantee the item’s appropriateness. The analysis usually determines three indices of an item; difficulty or passing index (PI), discrimination index (DI), and distractor efficiency (DE). Objectives: This study was aimed to analyze the multiple-choice questions in the preclinical and clinical examinations with different numbers of options in medical program of Universiti Putra Malaysia. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Forty multiple-choice questions with four options from the preclinical examination and 80 multiple-choice questions with five options from the clinical examination in 2017 and 2018 were analyzed using optical mark recognition machine and Ms. Excel. The parameters included PI, DI, and DE. Results: The average difficulty level of multiple-choice questions for preclinical and clinical phase examinations were similar in 2017 and 2018 that were considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘ideal’ ranged from 0.55 to 0.60, respectively. The average DIs were similar in all examinations that were considered ‘good’ (ranged from 0.25 to 0.31) except in 2018 clinical phase examination that showed ‘poor’ items (DI = 0.20±0.11). The questions for preclinical phase showed an increase in the number of ‘excellent’ and ‘good’ items in 2018 from 37.5% to 70.0%. There was an increase of 10.0% for preclinical phase, and 6.25% for clinical phase, in the number of items with no non-functioning distractors in 2018. Among all, preclinical multiple-choice questions in 2018 showed the highest mean of DE (71.67%). Conclusions: Our findings suggested that there was an improvement in the questions from preclinical phase while more training on questions preparation and continuous feedback should be given to clinical phase teachers. A higher number of options did not affect the level of difficulty of a question; however, the discrimination power and distracto

Treatment of herpes simplex infection requires high and frequent doses of oral acyclovir to attain its maximum therapeutic effect. The current therapeutic regimen of acyclovir is known to cause unwarranted dose-related adverse effects, including acute kidney injury. For this reason, a suitable delivery system for acyclovir was developed to improve the pharmacokinetic limitations and ultimately administer the drug at a lower dose and/or less frequently. In this study, solid lipid nanoparticles were designed to improve the oral bioavailability of acyclovir. The central composite design was applied to investigate the influence of the materials on the physicochemical properties of the solid lipid nanoparticles, and the optimized formulation was further characterized. Solid lipid nanoparticles formulated from Compritol 888 ATO resulted in a particle size of 108.67 ± 1.03 nm with an entrapment efficiency of 91.05 ± 0.75%. The analyses showed that the optimum combination of surfactant and solid lipid produced solid lipid nanoparticles of good quality with controlled release property and was stable at refrigerated and room temperature for at least 3 months. A five-fold increase in oral bioavailability of acyclovir-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles was observed in rats compared to commercial acyclovir suspension. This study has presented promising results that solid lipid nanoparticles could potentially be used as an oral drug delivery vehicle for acyclovir due to their excellent properties.

It is a well-known fact that assessment influences learning and study behaviour. Assessment affects what and how students learn, either positive or negative learning behaviour. This study was aimed to determine students’ perceived assessment experience and the comparison among different gender, ethnicity, and phase of the study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study. Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ) version 3.3 was distributed to 324 undergraduate medical students of Universiti Putra Malaysia. The AEQ score among different gender, ethnicity, and phase of the study was compared using independent t-test and one-way ANOVA. RESULTS: Female students were found to develop a surface approach to learning, learn new things from the assessment, and be satisfied more with the teaching compared to males. Chinese students tended to put higher effort into learning compared to Malay. Clinical students valued more the feedback received and had clearer goals and expectations for their work than preclinical students. However, preclinical students tended to put a higher quantity of effort, learn wider coverage of syllabus and develop a surface approach of learning than clinical students. The respondents commented that feedback is lacking and suggested having more feedback sessions with their teachers after assessment. CONCLUSION: There were different assessment experiences and learning found among different gender, race, and phase of the study. These may affect their academic performance and are probably due to the curriculum setting. Understanding student assessment experience and its impact helps the faculty to improve the assessment structure for a conducive assessment environment and meaningful learning experience for the students.

Pain has been considered as a concept of sensation that we feel as a reaction to the stimulus of our surrounding, putting us in harm’s way and acting as a form of defense mechanism that our body has permanently installed into its system. However, pain leads to a huge chunk of finances within the healthcare system with continuous rehabilitation of patients with adverse pain sensations, which might reduce not only their quality of life but also their productivity at work setting back the pace of our economy. It may not look like a huge deal but factor in pain as an issue for majority of us, it becomes an economical burden. Although pain has been researched into and understood by numerous researches, from its definition, mechanism of action to its inhibition in hopes of finding an absolute solution for victims of pain, the pathways of pain sensation, neurotransmitters involved in producing such a sensation are not comprehensively reviewed. Therefore, this review article aims to put in place a thorough understanding of major pain conditions that we experience—nociceptive, inflammatory and physiologically dysfunction, such as neuropathic pain and its modulation and feedback systems. Moreover, the complete mechanism of conduction is compiled within this article, elucidating understandings from various researches and breakthroughs.

Objectives: Erythroxylum cuneatum is a plant that belongs to the family of Erythroxylaceae. It is locally known as “Chinta mula” and found around Southeast Asia. This study identified the active phytochemicals and antioxidant properties in various extracts derived from dried leaves of Erythroxylum cuneatum. Methods: The tests of phytochemical screening included extracts of ethanol, acetone, hexane and aqueous. The antioxidant activity was determined by measuring total phenolic content, 2,2- diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity and hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity. Results: The phytochemical screening of Erythroxylum cuneatum dried leaves revealed the presence of phenolic compounds namely flavonoids, tannins and total phenols. Alkaloids and saponins were also detected. The antioxidant activity of the examined extracts varies depending on the solvent used. Generally, acetone extract showed highest total phenolic content with a value of 2228 µg GAE/g and highest DPPH radical scavenging activity with IC50 of 1020.00 µg/ml compared to the standard ascorbic acid of 304.44 µg/ml. Ethanol extract exhibited high hydrogen peroxide activity with IC50 of 83.09 µg/ml. Conclusion: This study showed that acetone extract contains highest phenolic compounds and both ethanol and acetone extracts are a potential source of natural antioxidants.

Introduction: Challenge arises for medical undergraduates as the subject of medicine is intricate and extensive. Although students come from the same pool of excellent academic background, the medical undergraduates are still prone to failure in exams, resulting in them repeating the year of study or even having the thought of changing to other courses. In order to cope with the programme, students may adopt learning approaches that would help them to go through the programme. Therefore, it would be interesting to explore the learning approaches of medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. Methods: The purposes of this study were to determine the learning approach of medical undergraduates of Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (FMHS, UPM) together with its associated factors, which were socio-demographic characteristics and learning environment. This research was a cross-sectional study where the sample size calculated was 554. Self-administered questionnaires were given to the respondents chosen by simple random sampling. The socio-demographic characteristics were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage. Chi-square test was used to analyse the association between the variables. Results: The response rate was 83% (460 respondents agreed to participate). The majority of the respondents were females (73.7%), Malay (67%), and in their clinical years of study (58.7%). Overall, most students preferred deep approach (DA) of learning (49.6%), followed by strategic approach (29.1%) and surface apathetic approach (21.3%) of learning. There were statistically significant associations between learning approach and gender (p=0.005), as well as between learning approach and year of study (p=0.037). Conclusion: Our study showed an association between learning approaches and year of study and gender. DA of learning was the preferred learning approach in medical students at FMHS, UPM. This approach of learning, whe

Using holographic viewing in education seems logical as the next step in advancing the education scene in Malaysia. Even though hologram is not a new technology, the potential of hologram visualization has yet to be tapped, particularly in teaching and learning cognitively challenging courses. Without hologram, the process of assimilating and understanding complex structure such as human anatomy, multipart engine structure, compound particle, etc. can be a daunting task for some students. Thus, we present an inexpensive holographic viewer using hologram pyramid and mobile devices, in making it available for students to increase their learning experience.

Introduction: Poor sleep quality among university students seems to be an important issue to be concerned. It can give great impact on students especially on their academic performance. However, studies regarding sleep quality on medical students in Malaysia are limited. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the sleep quality of pre-clinical medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Malaya (UM). Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the pre-clinical medical students of UPM and UM. Sleep quality of the students was measured by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire. All the data were analysed by using SPSS version 21. Results: The study revealed that 63.9% of the respondents had poor sleep quality (PSQI score: more than 5). The prevalence of poor sleepers in UM (67%) was slightly higher than UPM (60.9%). However, the comparison of PSQI score showed no significant difference between UPM and UM respondents (p = 0.082). The average sleep duration per night among respondents was 5 hours 39 minutes (1.21 hrs). Only 6.1% of students practiced recommended sleep value per night (>7 hrs). Significant association was found between caffeine intake with sleep quality. Besides, our study showed no association between sleep quality with gender and year of study. Conclusion: Majority of the pre-clinical students in UPM and UM had poor sleep quality and short sleep duration. Only a small number of students practiced recommended sleep value per night.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It may result from the interactions between multiple genetic and environmental factors including sedentary lifestyle and dietary habits. The quality of dietary oils and fats has been widely recognised to be inextricably linked to the pathogenesis of CVD. Vegetable oil is one of the essential dietary components in daily food consumption. However, the benefits of vegetable oil can be deteriorated by repeated heating that leads to lipid oxidation. The practice of using repeatedly heated cooking oil is not uncommon as it will reduce the cost of food preparation. Thermal oxidation yields new functional groups which may be potentially hazardous to cardiovascular health. Prolonged consumption of the repeatedly heated oil has been shown to increase blood pressure and total cholesterol, cause vascular inflammation as well as vascular changes which predispose to atherosclerosis. The harmful effect of heated oils is attributed to products generated from lipid oxidation during heating process. In view of the potential hazard of oxidation products, therefore this review article will provide an insight and awareness to the general public on the consumption of repeatedly heated oils which is detrimental to health.