AN ENGLISH SPEAKING TRAINING FOR THE DRAGON FRUIT PLANTATION WORKERS IN REMPANG ISLAND, BATAM: AGRO-TOURISM BASE

Batam is the third most visited city of foreign tourists due to the strategic location that closes to Singapore and Malaysia. It becomes a distinct advantage with the number of tourists visiting. In addition to marine tourism and shopping tourism, Batam has agro-tourism in the islands around Batam Island. Cafe Zore in Rempang Island's dragon fruit plantation is often visited by domestic and foreign tourists. Foreign tourists often experience difficulties in communicating with English because the employees could not speak English. It is aimed to develop employees' English skills through methods of community education and training with lecturing, discussion and demonstration techniques. The result of this training was the improvement of the English spoken ability. To sum up this PkM activity is that English communication skills are very important to welcome foreign tourists visiting and support the government to develop tourism in Batam

Predicting combinations of drugs by exploiting graph embedding of heterogeneous networks

Background Drug combination, offering an insight into the increased therapeutic efficacy and reduced toxicity, plays an essential role in the therapy of many complex diseases. Although significant efforts have been devoted to the identification of drugs, the identification of drug combination is still a challenge. The current algorithms assume that the independence of feature selection and drug prediction procedures, which may result in an undesirable performance. Results To address this issue, we develop a novel Semi-supervised Heterogeneous Network Embedding algorithm (called SeHNE) to predict the combination patterns of drugs by exploiting the graph embedding. Specifically, the ATC similarity of drugs, drug–target, and protein–protein interaction networks are integrated to construct the heterogeneous networks. Then, SeHNE jointly learns drug features by exploiting the topological structure of heterogeneous networks and predicting drug combination. One distinct advantage of SeHNE is that features of drugs are extracted under the guidance of classification, which improves the quality of features, thereby enhancing the performance of prediction of drugs. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is more accurate than state-of-the-art methods on various data, implying that the joint learning is promising for the identification of drug combination. Conclusions The proposed model and algorithm provide an effective strategy for the prediction of combinatorial patterns of drugs, implying that the graph-based drug prediction is promising for the discovery of drugs.

Examination of distributed learning on recent and remote memory using in-person and online experimental paradigms

Learning is crucial in everyday life. However, how much information we retain depends on the type and schedule of training. It has been widely acknowledged that spaced learning holds a distinct advantage over massed learning for cognitively healthy adults and should be considered an educational standard, particularly when consolidating long-term memory. Given that many experiments have been required to be conducted online as a result of social distancing regulations during the Covid-19 pandemic, we examined whether the spacing advantage could be replicated in an online setup. Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of spacing across recent (24 hours) and remote (one-month) retention intervals using the Face-Name Pairs task either in-person (Experiment 1) or online (Experiment 2). The results of Experiment 1 suggest that the beneficial memory effects of spaced training are particularly observed with remote memory. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that although participants learn and recall better in an online setup compared to in-person, the spacing effects were not as robust and did not confer any real advantage. These results are discussed in terms of advantages and disadvantages of the two procedures and the implications for online studies.

Patterns of Social Media Usage among Malaysians During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper explores the use of social media among Malaysians during the Covid-19 pandemic. Questionnaires were distributed to 424 people in Malaysia who were directly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The research findings revealed that the main reasons that drove people to use social media were cognitive aspects, escapism, affective factors, and social integration. The data also shows that Malaysians frequently employed social media to search for information, for diversion purposes, and due to habit. Meanwhile, the highest levels of gratifications were derived from factors of convenience, surveillance, and interpersonal discussion. This study concludes that social media plays a crucial role for Malaysians while confronting the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside other media components. It cannot be denied that technology also influenced uses and gratifications among the audiences. The uniqueness of social media, coupled with the smartphone, gives it a distinct advantage over other media forms. The audiences had at their disposal a multitude of information that could bring numerous usages and forms of gratifications.

Therapeutic Potential of Emodin for Gastrointestinal Cancers

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers cause one-third of all cancer-related deaths worldwide. Natural compounds are emerging as alternative or adjuvant cancer therapies given their distinct advantage of manipulating multiple pathways to both suppress tumor growth and alleviate cancer comorbidities; however, concerns regarding efficacy, bioavailability, and safety are barriers to their development for clinical use. Emodin (1,3,8-trihydroxy-6-methylanthraquinone), a Chinese herb-derived anthraquinone, has been shown to exert anti-tumor effects in colon, liver, and pancreatic cancers. While the mechanisms underlying emodin’s tumoricidal effects continue to be unearthed, recent evidence highlights a role for mitochondrial mediated apoptosis, modulated stress and inflammatory signaling pathways, and blunted angiogenesis. The goals of this review are to (1) highlight emodin’s anti-cancer properties within GI cancers, (2) discuss the known anti-cancer mechanisms of action of emodin, (3) address emodin’s potential as a treatment complementary to standard chemotherapeutics, (4) assess the efficacy and bioavailability of emodin derivatives as they relate to cancer, and (5) evaluate the safety of emodin.

Synthesis and characterization of fat-liquor from waste tallow

The fat-liquoring is an important step in leather making before dying to improve the glossiness, appearance, physical and chemical qualities of the leather. Synthetic sulphonated or sulphited oils are generally used to fill fibrous leather & to give it soft, elastic and loose characteristics. Natural fat-liquors (vegetable and animal-based) and synthetic fat-liquors are the two types of emulsions. The emulsion’s charge can be anionic, cationic, or nonionic. In this study, fat-liquor has been made from a bio-waste, namely tallow, which is obtained from a slaughterhouse as a byproduct of the animal hides and skin processing for leather. Triglycerides, a combination of oleic, stearic, and palmitic fatty acids, and glycerol make up the majority of this animal fat. Fat-liquor is made through a series of three reactions, namely, amidation, esterification, and sulphitation. Amidation helps to increase the hydroxyl groups. To react with fat, alkanol amine with a wide emulsifying characteristic isutilised. Anhydrides derived from di-carboxylic acids were then esterified with amidated fat in the next phase. By altering the process recipe, the stability of the emulsion product has been examined, and required raw materials are optimized. Finally, aqueous hydrolyzed sodium metabisulphite is used to sulphite the product, yielding bisulphite and hydroxide ions. The saponification and acid values are computed. The end product has a distinct advantage (anti-foaming & fire-retardant) over traditional fat-liquoring techniques. Material balance is performed once the process flow sheet was created. The process has been scaled up with the help of a preliminary reactor design. The degree of fat-liquoring and the process’ performance are revealed by FTIR spectrum. NMR was used to determine the final product’s structure.

Comprehensive Knowledge-Driven AI System for Air Classification Process

Air classifier devices have a distinct advantage over other systems used to separate materials. They maximize the mill’s capacity and therefore constitute efficient methods of reducing the energy consumption of crushing and grinding operations. Since improvement in their performance is challenging, the development of an efficient modeling system is of great practical significance. The paper introduces a novel, knowledge-based classification (FLClass) system of bulk materials. A wide range of operating parameters are considered in the study: the mean mass and the Sauter mean diameter of the fed material, classifier rotor speed, working air pressure, and test conducting time. The output variables are the Sauter mean diameter and the cut size of the classification product, as well as the performance of the process. The model was successfully validated against experimental data. The maximum relative error between the measured and predicted data is lower than 9%. The presented fuzzy-logic-based approach allows an optimization study of the process to be conducted. For the considered range of input parameters, the highest performance of the classification process is equal to almost 362 g/min. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first one available in open literature dealing with the fuzzy logic approach in modeling the air classification process of bulk materials.

A comparative study of Dynamic Hip Screw and Proximal Femoral Nail in the management of Intertrochanteric Fractures of the Femur

Introduction: Intertrochanteric fractures account for approximately half of the hip fractures in the elderly because of the osteoporotic nature of the bone. There are various modalities to treat these fractures. The objective of this study was to compare and evaluate the clinical and radiological outcome of intertrochanteric femur fracture treated with Dynamic hip screw (DHS) and proximal femoral nail (PFN). Methods: This study was conducted at Nepalgunj medical college, Department of orthopedics Nepalgunj over a time span of two years. A total of 52 patients were included and randomized into Dynamic hip screw (n=26) and Proximal femoral nail (n=26) group. Patient’s demographic details, perioperative findings, radiological findings and follow up findings were recorded. The results were evaluated and compared. Results: The mean age in our study was 57.63 years. Trivial fall was the most common mode of injury. There was significantly higher intraoperative blood loss in the DHS group. Radiological union and functional outcomes were similar overall, but in case of unstable fracture functional outcome was clinically better in PFN group. Conclusion: From our study we concluded that PFN has better outcome in case of unstable intertrochanteric fractures, however in stable fracture also it has distinct advantage over DHS.

Science High School Students' Socioeconomic Background and Their Preferences Regarding Their Transition into Higher Education

The aim of this study is to determine the socioeconomic background of students at science high schools and to examine their preferences and placements into higher education programs on a yearly basis. The data regarding the socioeconomic background and placement into higher education programs of 103,635 students who graduated from science high schools between 2011 and 2019 were analyzed. The results show that there has been a partial decrease in the science high school graduates' placement into higher education programs in recent years. This finding seems to be related to the higher education quotas, rather than a dramatic change in the performance of graduates. Nevertheless, the total number of graduates placed into medicine and engineering programs continued to increase between 2011 and 2019. The results also show that placement ratios of graduates to their first, first five, and first ten preferences have decreased remarkably in recent years. The findings indicate that the imbalance of supply-demand in higher education adversely influences the graduates of science high schools, who are among the highest performing-students. The authors suggest a reevaluation of the current higher education quotas to allow an increased access to higher education. Further, our findings show that graduates have a distinct advantage in terms of their parental income and level of education. The authors suggest strengthening remedial education to minimize achievement differences in primary education and to improve the equality of opportunity in secondary education.

Nanomaterials: Synthesis and Applications in Theranostics

Nanomaterials are endowed with unique features and essential properties suitable for employing in the field of nanomedicine. The nanomaterials can be classified as 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D based on their dimensions. The nanomaterials can be malleable and ductile and they can be drawn into wires and sheets. Examples of nanomaterials are quantum dots (0D), nanorods, nanowires (1D), nanosheets (2D), and nanocubes (3D). These nanomaterials can be synthesized using top-down and bottom-up approaches. The achievements of 0D and 1D nanomaterials are used to detect trace heavy metal (e.g., Pb2+) and have higher sensitivity with the order of five as compared to conventional sensors. The achievements of 2D and 3D nanomaterials are used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents with multifunctional ability in imaging systems such as PET, SPECT, etc. These imaging modalities can be used to track the drug in living tissues. This review comprises the state-of-the-art of the different dimensions of the nanomaterials employed in theranostics. The nanomaterials with different dimensions have unique physicochemical properties that can be utilized for therapy and diagnosis. The multifunctional ability of the nanomaterials can have a distinct advantage that is used in the field of theranostics. Different dimensions of the nanomaterials would have more scope in the field of nanomedicine.