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Estimating from the steady declining rate of engineering students in Malaysia, the country is predicted to be short of 236,000 engineers and technical personnel to achieve its 2020 Mission. Hence, it has built the first technical MARA Junior Science College that introduced engineering to lower secondary students. However, there is yet a study on whether or not it helps the students to increase their interests in engineering. Therefore, in this paper, a survey has been conducted to first and foremost investigate the technical students' interests in engineering as well as finding out the reasoning from those who are not interested in engineering. After that, a half day engineering program is introduced with a measurement on the interest in engineering before and after the intervention is held. Finally, the survey studies which field of engineering the students are most interested in. The results show that, before the program is introduced, only 8.47% of the technical students have shown high interests in engineering field with only 7.5% female students are interested in engineering compared to 18.42% for male students. After the program is introduced, as high as 33.05% students rated their interest in engineering field as 'most interested', with 39.47% in male students and 30% in female students. It proves that an engineering event is crucial in increasing students' interests in engineering. It also concludes that Electrical Engineering is the most favourite field of engineering with percentage score of 38.98%, while Electrical Power being the least.

Based on the genome annotation, oil palm genes can have either known or unknown functions. Hypothetical genes or unknown genes constitute averagely 24.40% from three gene model versions of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.). The conventional method to prove their existence is labourious and limited, thus by bioinformatics analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data, the potential role of hypothetical genes can be scrutinised comprehensively. In this study, the annotated hypothetical genes are reanalysed using sequence-based and transcriptomic data analysis to investigate their presence, differential expression and potential horizontal gene transfer (HGT) event with distantly related organisms in infected oil palm. In total 610 sequences still remain as hypothetical whilst others showed similarities with known genes which are not considered as hypothetical anymore. From the 610 genes, 92 are conserved in model plants and non-Plantae and eight genes are potential candidates of HGT events in oil palm with changes of expression during Ganoderma boninense infection. A transferred gene usually possess critical function, thus the presence of true hypothetical genes should not be ignored since it can be served as potential biomarkers of desired traits in oil palm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The soil-borne fungus, Ganoderma boninense is notorious as the cause of basal stem rot (BSR) disease in oil palm that results in severe economic losses. Due to insufficient functional information of its genome, mechanism underlying the infection is still enigmatic. Despite the constraint, here we report the pan-genome of eight draft genomes of Ganoderma sp. that delineated into 35,121 orthologous genes (OGs), consisting 4,898 genes in core genome and 30,223 genes in accessory genome, whilst the latter encompasses of 1,905 species-specific genes. Further genome-wide comparative analysis discovers 607 genes in pathogenic fungi G. boninense but not in its related non-pathogenic Ganoderma sp., suggesting their potential role in G. boninense pathogenicity towards its host. By implementing various bioinformatics tools and public databases, the incorporated functional enrichment of the candidate genes leads to inference of their role during host-pathogen interaction. This enables us to narrow down the entire gene catalogue in Ganoderma sp. for experimental verification in the laboratory. It is undeniable that the harnessing of Ganoderma sp. pan-genome data will conform to a more structured downstream analysis in understanding the role of G. boninense as the key agent of BSR in oil palm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MADS-box genes encode a group of transcription factor family, well known as key regulators of plant vegetative and development processes, including flowering. Here, we aimed at analysing MADS-box genes in African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) genome, the pre-dominant source of worldwide production of vegetable oils. A total of 209 potential MADS-box genes are identified in the published 1.8 Gb E. guineensis draft genome. A de novo assembly of RNA-seq data from inflorescence tissues was constructed using Trinity software. The analysed transcriptome data has validated 36 full-length genes, inclusive of seven transcripts that were previously annotated to encode unknown proteins. Of the 36 genes discovered, 21 genes were characterised as Type I MADS-box genes and phylogenetic analysis using maximum likelihood approach further classified them into three sub-groups of Mα, Mβ and MΥ. Based on in silico analyses, we have successfully identified one gene annotated as unknown protein to contain a domain of "MADS-box transcription factor". Its differential expression data, comparison between normal and mantled inflorescence of oil palm, suggested the involvement of the gene in the mantling related process. The findings contribute to updated oil palm genome information which may potentially lead to future understanding of the association of MADS-box genes in mantled oil palm. This may also lead to a resource for biomarker discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]