The Use of Hall’s Technique Preformed Metal Crown (HTPMC) by Pediatric Dentists in Malaysia

Introduction. Hall’s technique preformed metal crown (HTPMC) has been used widely by pediatric dentists in developed countries as a new approach for managing decayed primary molars without local anesthesia, caries removal, and tooth preparation. Currently, inadequate information is available regarding the implementation of this technique (HTPMC) in Malaysia. This study is aimed at evaluating the implementation of HTPMC by Malaysia’s pediatric dentists and identify the co-occurrence frequencies of the HTPMC implementation with the respondents’ demographic profile. Materials and Methods. A cross-sectional questionnaire-based research was conducted among 65 pediatric dentists in Malaysia. Online questionnaires were distributed to the pediatric dentists employed at public hospitals (MOH) and universities in Malaysia. Result. It was found that over half of the respondents (65.6%) employed HTPMC. The analysis of the co-occurrence network frequency revealed that a high frequency of female pediatric dentists who were within the age group of 31-40 years old had fulfilled their postgraduation overseas and was employed in the university mainly applied HTPMC. Conclusion. The application of HTPMC among respondent pediatric dentists in Malaysia was high. However, most respondents considered HTPMC a treatment option only to manage carious primary molar rather than a treatment of choice.

Smart Health Pregnancy by Augmented Reality: An Interactive Guide for Embryo Growth Using Multi-Marker

This research aims to create Smart Health Pregnancy software that educates pregnant women on fetal development. During pregnancy, a pregnant woman’s health highly influences the pregnancy success rate. Thus, knowing the pregnancy process is necessary for pregnant women. Although resources concerning fetal development such as textbooks, general articles, and websites can be accessed easily, these resources are often too condensed with text, have a less interactive display, and provide inadequate information. Therefore, Smart Health Pregnancy software would facilitate pregnant women in understanding fetal development, displayed in an interactive way using Augmented Reality (AR) technology. The AR method utilized is a marker-based tracking method where the user can use an Android smartphone camera to receive a marker that can display a virtual object in the real world. The virtual object is presented in the form of the embryo or fetus from 1 to 38 weeks in 3D. Furthermore, important information regarding fetal development and the health of pregnant women is also shown. From the results, 95% of the respondents stated that this software is user-friendly and very informative. It shows that the software has performed well and can educate pregnant women.

Reducing missed opportunities for vaccination in Mozambique: findings from a cross-sectional assessment conducted in 2017

ObjectiveMissed opportunities for vaccination (MOV) are a significant contributor to low vaccination coverage. To better understand the magnitude and underlying causes of MOV among children aged 0–23 months in Mozambique, we conducted an assessment and developed a roadmap for strengthening the country’s childhood immunisation programme.SettingThree provinces in North, South and Central Mozambique.MethodsThe assessment applied a mixed-method approach. From a sample of 41 health facilities, we conducted exit interviews with caregivers of children aged 0–23 months (n=546), surveys with health workers (n=223), focus group discussions with caregivers (n=6) and health workers (n=5), and in-depth interviews with health facility managers (n=9). We analysed the data to assess the magnitude of MOV and to identify causes of MOV and ways of preventing them.ResultsVaccination records were available for 538 children. Sixty per cent (n=324) were eligible for vaccination on arriving for their health facility visit. Of these, 76% (n=245) were not fully vaccinated, constituting MOV. Our analysis shows that these MOV were most frequently attributable to practices of caregivers and health workers and also to health systems reasons. Inadequate information about vaccination among both caregivers and health workers, poor or poorly understood health facility practices, inadequate integration of curative and preventative services, inadequate tracking systems to identify children due for vaccination and, less often, limited supply of vaccines, syringes and other related supplies at service points resulted in MOV.ConclusionsThe results of the assessment informed the development of roadmaps for reducing MOV that may be applicable to other settings. The global immunisation community should continue to invest in efforts to reduce MOV and thereby make health service visits more effective and efficient for vaccination.

A Comparative Evaluation of the Effects of Credit Risk Control on the Profitability of Micro-Finance Bank

When assessing lending applications, banks face the problem of inadequate information needed to screen potential borrowers. The relevant information needed to evaluate the commitment of the entrepreneur and the likelihood of the business is challenging to interpret or even absent. This creates risk for the banks. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to give much consideration to credit management first before embarking on lending. In this research, we used both primary and secondary sources. We adopt a multi-stage sampling method by selecting a set of 21 respondents from a population of 52 credit officers. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the respondents while descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data collected and in testing the hypotheses. Specifically, we used simple percentage and regression analysis. We used the software SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) to implement the statistical techniques mentioned above. The results showed that microfinance banks need to strengthen their credit risk control measures to increase their profitability. This is because if properly adopted it helps to decrease the percentage of payments defaults. Credit management is important in improving the financial performance of microfinance banks and this is attributed to the fact that sounds and grounded credit management (client appraisal) allowed the bank to be efficient and have the availability of liquidity.

Pendampingan Kader Kesehatan Dalam Deteksi Dini Penyakit Degue Haemoraghic Fever (DBD) Di Dusun 1 Desa Sukabanjar Kecamatan Gedong Tataan Kabupaten Pesawaran Bandar Lampung

ABSTRAK Deteksi Dini penyakit Dengue Haemoragic Fever di Dusun 1 Desa Sukabanjar Kecamatan Gedong Tataan Kabupaten Pesawaran Bandar Lampung belum dilakukan dengan baik di Wilayah Kerja Puskesmas Bernung. Hambatan yang ditemukan yakni pengetahuan kader kesehatan tidak adekuat, belum tersedianya informasi yang adekuat tentang deteksi dini penyakit dengue haemoragic fever (DBD) pada kader kesehatan. Pelibatan kader kesehatan dalam edukasi mengenai deteksi dini penyakit DBD menentukan keberhasilan dalam penanganan awal DBD. Tujuan kegiatan pengabdian masyarakat yang dilakukan dalam pendampingan kader kesehatan untuk meningkatkan pengetahuan dan peran kader kesehatan dalam masyarakat dalam deteksi dini DBD. Kegiatan dilakukan di Kantor Kelurahan Dusun 1 Desa Sukabanjar Kota Bandar Lampung pada bulan Desember 2018. Metode yang dilakukan yakni ceramah, diskusi, praktek cara melakukan rumpled test. Hasil dari kegiatan pengabdian masyarakat ini didapatkan peningkatan pengetahuan kader kesehatan tentang deteksi dini DBD. Kegiatan pengabdian masyarakat yang dilakukan adalah bentuk upaya dalam deteksi dini DBD dengan melibatkan kader kesehatan. Kata Kunci : Deteksi Dini, Kader Kesehatan, Rumpled Test ABSTRACT Early detection of dengue haemoragic fever in Dusun 1, Sukabanjar Village, Gedong Tataan Subdistrict, Pesawaran Regency, Bandar Lampung, has not been carried out properly in the Work Area of the Bernung Health Center. The obstacles found were inadequate knowledge of health cadres, inadequate information on early detection of dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) among health cadres. The involvement of health cadres in education regarding early detection of dengue disease determines the success in the initial handling of dengue. The purpose of community service activities carried out in mentoring health cadres is to increase knowledge and the role of health cadres in the community in early detection of dengue fever. The activity was carried out at the Subdistrict Office of Dusun 1, Sukabanjar Village, Bandar Lampung City in December 2018. The methods used were lectures, discussions, practice on how to do a rumpled test. The results of this community service activity were found to increase the knowledge of health cadres about the early detection of dengue. Community service activities carried out are a form of effort in early detection of dengue by involving health cadres. Keyword : early detection, Health cadres, rumpled test

Heuristics and Bias in Indonesian Elections

In the general election for legislative candidates, which is attended by dozens of candidates in one electoral district, often voters do not have sufficient information about the background and performance of the competing candidates. This study explores how a voter chooses his deputy candidate with inadequate information on the candidates. In conditions of low candidate personal information, voters use various attributes or any clues listed on the ballot to help them make decisions in a limited time. In political psychology, mental processes like this are referred to as heuristics. Using an online experimental method and a 2x2 factorial design as well as a two-way ANOVA statistical test, this study examines two forms of heuristics that voters might use to help make political decisions, namely gender and academic degrees. This study indicates that neither gender nor academic degree has a significant effect on encouraging voters to choose. This is evidenced by the results of experimental research studies, which show that each variable has a significance greater than 0.05.

Effect of Packaging on the Stability of Stored Dry Silver Cyprinid (Rastrineobola argentea)

Dried silver cyprinid (Rastrineobola argentea) has the potential to provide an affordable and accessible food-based strategy to fight malnutrition among Ugandans and enrich diets of the vulnerable persons. However, there is inadequate information on changes in the nutritional content and safety of stored dry silver cyprinid along the local handling chain. This study evaluated the effect of conventionally used packaging on microbial safety and nutrient quality of dry silver cyprinid during storage. Freshly dried silver cyprinid was obtained from stores at four landing sites on Lake Victoria and stored in open and closed gunny bags for 8 weeks. Samples were collected at 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks of storage and assessed for nutritional and microbial quality. The type of packaging used (open or closed gunny bags) had no significant effect on most nutrient content and microbial safety parameters (p >0.05) except iron content, aflatoxin content, and TVBN content. Open gunny bags had higher aflatoxin content, greater iron degradation and greater variation in TVBN as compared to closed gunny bags throughout the storage duration. The observed difference in some of the quality parameters can be attributed to increased permeability to oxygen and moisture in open gunny bags as compared to closed gunny bags.

Design of Multi-Receptive Field Fusion-Based Network for Surface Defect Inspection on Hot-Rolled Steel Strip Using Lightweight Dataset

With the advancement of industrial intelligence, defect recognition has become an indispensable part of facilitating surface quality in the steel manufacturing process. To assure product quality, most previous studies were typically trained with many defect samples. Nonetheless, a large quantity of defect samples is difficult to obtain, owing to the rare occurrence of defects. In general, deep learning-based methods underperformed as they have inherent limitations due to inadequate information, thereby restraining the application of models. In this study, a two-level Gaussian pyramid is applied to decompose raw data into different resolution levels simultaneously filtering the noises to acquire compact and representative features. Subsequently, a multi-receptive field fusion-based network (MRFFN) is developed to learn the hierarchical features and synthesize the respective prediction scores to form the final recognition result. As a result, the proposed method is capable of exhibiting an outstanding performance of 99.75% when trained using a lightweight dataset. In addition, the experiments conducted using the disturbance defect dataset showed the robustness of the proposed MRFFN against common noises and motion blur.

Early Post-Acute Myocardial Infarction: Psychosocial and Financial Concerns

Purpose: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a major cardiovascular event that has significant psycho-social-physical and lifestyle consequences. This study assessed the feelings of patients within days following an AMI in a public health institute in Trinidad and Tobago. Results: Of the 150 AMI patients, 134 (89.3%), were included in the study. Sixteen (10.7%) patients were not included due to inadequate information. Among the post-AMI patients, common negative feelings experienced include fear of another heart attack (n = 74, 55.2%), fear of death (n = 40, 29.9%), and fear of the future (n = 29, 21.6%). However, the positive thoughts of the AMI patients predominated: intentions to improve eating habits (n = 97, 73.5%), and increased spirituality (n = 82, 62.1%). Changes in feelings from pre to post AMI were most pronounced for positive feelings such as improved eating habits, regular exercise, and improved goals. In general, among the post-AMI patients, there were no significant associations between age and sex. However, significant associations were found between selected lifestyles variables (exercise, alcohol, eating habits, employment status, hypertension, and obesity) and psychological issues such as fear of another heart attack, improved relationships, or turning to God. Conclusions: Post-AMI patients experienced major psychosocial issues in the early post-AMI period. Though negative feelings were common, most of the patients resolved to make positive lifestyle changes.

The effect of different anesthesia applications on serum Pentraxin-3 levels: a randomized prospective study

Objective: Pentraxin-3 (PTX3) is a biomarker shown to correlate with the severity of infections. It is a good indicator of mortality and is useful in monitoring treatment success. However, there is inadequate information about the factors affecting PTX3 levels. This study aimed to investigate the effects of different anaesthesia types on serum PTX3 levels. Materials/Patients and Methods: Serum PTX3 levels were obtained from patients who were under general anaesthesia (GA) and spinal anaesthesia (SA) for a caesarean section (C-section). Blood Samples were collected preoperatively at 6 h and 24 h postoperatively. Biomarkers such as C-reactive protein, white blood cells, neutrophils and lymphocytes were also assessed as biomarkers. Results: No difference was found in the preoperative serum PTX3 levels among the participants (p > 0.05). A significant increase was observed when the preoperative PTX3 levels (0.16 ng/mL) were compared with the postoperative levels at 6 h (0.25 ng/mL) and 24 h (0.54 ng/mL) in the GA group. No significant change was found in the PTX3 levels at 0–6–24 h measurements in the SA group. Nevertheless, the GA group was found to be significantly higher than the SA group at 6 h and 24 h postoperatively (p < 0.05). Additionally, No correlation was observed between PTX3 levels and other biomarkers. Conclusions: This study showed that when coupled with C-section, GA increased the PTX3 levels postoperatively compared with the PTX3 levels during the preoperative period. No significant change was observed with SA. The PTX-3 levels should be considered to increase in association with GA in suspected infectious and inflammatory cases. Therefore, regional anaesthesia should be preferred.