Associations between parents' perception of neighbourhood environments and safety with physical activity of primary school children in Klang, Selangor, Malaysia.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to evaluate parental perception of neighbourhood environments and safety in association with children's physical activity among primary school children in Klang, Selangor, Malaysia. METHODS: A total of 250 children (9-12 years of age) and their parents participated in this cross-sectional study. Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children and Neighbourhood Environmental Walkability Scale as well as questions on constrained behaviours (avoidance and defensive behaviours) were used to assess the children's physical activity and parental perception of neighbourhood environment and safety, respectively. RESULTS: More than one-third (36.0%) of the children were physically inactive compared with only a small percentage (4.8%) who were physically active, with boys achieving higher physical activity levels than girls (t = 2.564, P = 0.011). For the environmental scale, parents' perception of land-use mix (access) (r = 0.173, P = 0.006), traffic hazards (r = -0.152, P = 0.016) and defensive behaviour (r = -0.024, P = 0.143) correlated significantly with children's physical activity. In multiple linear regression analysis, child's gender (ß = -0.226; P = 0.003), parent's education (ß = 0.140; P = 0.001), household income (ß = 0.151; P = 0.024), land-use mix (access) (ß = 0.134; P = 0.011) and defensive behaviour (ß = -0.017; P = 0.038) were significantly associated with physical activity in children (R = 0.349, F = 6.760; P < 0.001), contributing 12.2% of the variances in physical activity of the children. CONCLUSION: Results highlight the links between parental perception of neighbourhood environments, safety and constrained behaviours with their children's participation in active play. Interventions aimed to increase actual and perceived safety and reduce perceptions of risk by parents in safe neighbourhoods can be targeted to increase children's physical activity in their local neighbourhoods.

Classification of intelligence quotient via brainwave sub-band power ratio features and artificial neural network.

This paper elaborates on the novel intelligence assessment method using the brainwave sub-band power ratio features. The study focuses only on the left hemisphere brainwave in its relaxed state. Distinct intelligence quotient groups have been established earlier from the score of the Raven Progressive Matrices. Sub-band power ratios are calculated from energy spectral density of theta, alpha and beta frequency bands. Synthetic data have been generated to increase dataset from 50 to 120. The features are used as input to the artificial neural network. Subsequently, the brain behaviour model has been developed using an artificial neural network that is trained with optimized learning rate, momentum constant and hidden nodes. Findings indicate that the distinct intelligence quotient groups can be classified from the brainwave sub-band power ratios with 100% training and 88.89% testing accuracies.

Body mass index (BMI)-for-age and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among high school students in Tehran.

BACKGROUND: The study aimed to determine the association between body mass index (BMI)-for-age and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among high school students in Tehran. METHODS: A total of 465 high school students (227 girls and 238 boys) and their parents were participated in this cross-sectional study. Body weight and height of the students were measured. For assessing HRQOL, both adolescent self-report and parent proxy-report of the Persian version of Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™4.0) questionnaire were completed by adolescents and their parents respectively. RESULTS: The prevalence of overweight and obesity (38.5%) was higher than severe thinness and thinness (2.8%). Mean of adolescent self-reported and parent proxy-reported HRQOL total score were 80.26 ± 12.07 and 81.30 ± 14.08 respectively. In terms of HRQOL subscale scores, the highest subscale score of HRQOL was reported in social functioning (87.27 ± 14.40) and the lowest score was reported in emotional functioning (69.83 ± 18.69). Based on adolescent self-report, adolescent boys had significantly higher mean score for total and all subscale scores of HRQOL compared with girls (P < 0.05). BMI-for-age was inversely correlated to adolescent self-reported HRQOL total score (r = -0.25, P < 0.05). Based on adolescents self-report, HRQOL total score was significantly different by body weight status (F = 16.16, P < 0.05). Normal weight adolescents had significantly higher HRQOL total score compared with overweight (mean difference: 7.32; P < 0.05) and obese adolescents (mean difference: 9.10, P < 0.05). The HRQOL total score was not significantly different between normal weight and underweight adolescents (mean difference: 1.65, P = 0.96). However, based on parent proxy-reports, HRQOL total score was not significantly different by body weight status (F = 2.64, P = 0.059). CONCLUSION: More than one-third of adolescents were overweight and obese. BMI-for-age was inversely correlated to adolescent self-reported HRQOL. Based on adolescents' perspective, overweight and obese adolescents had poorer HRQOL compared with normal weight adolescents. Intervention studies are needed to improve the HRQOL of overweight and obese adolescents in Tehran.

Non-invasive diagnosis of risk in dengue patients using bioelectrical impedance analysis and artificial neural network.

This paper presents a new approach to diagnose and classify early risk in dengue patients using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and artificial neural network (ANN). A total of 223 healthy subjects and 207 hospitalized dengue patients were prospectively studied. The dengue risk severity criteria was determined and grouped based on three blood investigations, namely, platelet (PLT) count (less than or equal to 30,000 cells per mm(3)), hematocrit (HCT) (increase by more than or equal to 20%), and either aspartate aminotransferase (AST) level (raised by fivefold the normal upper limit) or alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level (raised by fivefold the normal upper limit). The dengue patients were classified according to their risk groups and the corresponding BIA parameters were subsequently obtained and quantified. Four parameters were used for training and testing the ANN which are day of fever, reactance, gender, and risk group's quantification. Day of fever was defined as the day of fever subsided, i.e., when the body temperature fell below 37.5°C. The blood investigation and the BIA data were taken for 5 days. The ANN was trained via the steepest descent back propagation with momentum algorithm using the log-sigmoid transfer function while the sum-squared error was used as the network's performance indicator. The best ANN architecture of 3-6-1 (3 inputs, 6 neurons in the hidden layer, and 1 output), learning rate of 0.1, momentum constant of 0.2, and iteration rate of 20,000 was pruned using a weight-eliminating method. Eliminating a weight of 0.05 enhances the dengue's prediction risk classification accuracy of 95.88% for high risk and 96.83% for low risk groups. As a result, the system is able to classify and diagnose the risk in the dengue patients with an overall prediction accuracy of 96.27%.

Microwave non-destructive testing technique for characterization of HPMC-PEG 3000 films.

The capacity of microwave non-destructive testing (NDT) technique to characterize the matrix property of binary polymeric films for use as transdermal drug delivery system was investigated. Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) 3000 were the choice of polymeric matrix and plasticizer, respectively with loratadine as the model drug. Both blank and drug loaded HPMC-PEG 3000 films were prepared using the solvent-evaporation method. These films were conditioned at the relative humidity of 25, 50 and 75% prior to physicochemical characterization using the established methods of ultra-violet spectrophotometry, differential scanning calorimetry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy methods, as well as, novel microwave NDT technique. Blank films exhibited a greater propensity of polymer-polymer interaction at the O-H domain upon storage at a lower level of relative humidity, whereas drug loaded films exhibited a greater propensity of polymer-polymer, polymer-plasticizer and/or drug-polymer interaction via the O-H, C-H and/or aromatic C=C functional groups when they were stored at a lower or moderate level of relative humidity. The absorption and transmission characteristics of both blank and drug loaded films for microwave varied with the state of polymer-polymer, polymer-plasticizer, and/or drug-polymer interaction of the matrix. The measurements of microwave NDT test at 8 and 12 GHz were sensitive to the polar fraction of film involving functional group such as O-H moiety and the less polar environment of matrix consisting of functional groups such as C-H and aromatic C=C moieties. The state of interaction between polymer, plasticizer and/or drug of a binary polymeric film can be elucidated through its absorption and transmission profiles of microwave.

Analysis of water compartment in dengue patients.

This paper describes the water compartments in healthy subjects and dengue patients on the day of defervescence of fever using bioelectrical impedance analysis. A total of 223 healthy subjects (65 males and 158 females) and 210 dengue patients (119 males and 91 females) in Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM), were studied. The ages for healthy subjects vary between 14 and 60 years old with mean age of 26.05 years while the ages for the dengue patients vary between 12 and 83 years old with mean age of 30.14 years. The parameters of water compartments investigated were total body water (TBW), extracellular water (ECW) and intracellular water (ICW). There were significant difference between healthy subjects and dengue patients for both male (p<0.05) and female (p<0.001) beginning on fever day 0 till fever day 4. The mean TBW and ECW values of dengue patients obtained were found to be higher than the normal healthy subjects while the mean ICW was lower. The mean TBW and ICW for male were higher than female while the mean ECW for male was lower than female for healthy subjects and dengue patients.

Modeling of hemoglobin in dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever using bioelectrical impedance.

This paper describes a model for predicting hemoglobin (Hb) by using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) in dengue patients in the Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM). Bioelectrical impedance measurements were conducted on 83 (47 males and 36 females) serologically confirmed dengue fever (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) patients during their hospitalization. The predictive equation for Hb was derived using multivariate analysis. We investigated all the parameters in BIA, patients' symptom and demographic data. In this developed model, four predictors (reactance (XC), sex, weight and vomiting) were found to be the best predictive factors for modeling Hb in dengue patients. However, the model can only explain approximately 42% of the variation in Hb status, thus single frequency bio-impedance stand-alone technique is insufficient to monitor Hb for the DF and DHF patients. Further investigation using multi-frequency BIA is recommended in modeling Hb to achieve the most parsimonious model.

Socio-economic determinants of nutritional status of children in rural peninsular Malaysia.

The data presented is part of the findings from a four-year collaborative research project between Universiti Putra Malaysia, the Institute for Medical Research and the Ministry of Health Malaysia. The project assessed the nutritional status of the major functional groups in Peninsular Malaysia. Mukim Sayong and Pulau Kemiri in the District of Kuala Kangsar, Perak were two of the subdistricts selected to represent small rubber holdings in Peninsular Malaysia. This paper attempts to analyse the socio-economic profile of the households and the nutritional status of children below 9 years of age. A total of 307 households were studied. Approximately 63% of the households were involved in rubber activities and the majority of them were hired tappers. The average monthly income of the households was RM467 and the income ranged between RM30 to RM2120. Based on the per capita poverty line income of RM84.38, it was found that 14.1% of the households earned less than RM42.19, which can be considered as hard-core poor, while 32.7% were poor (monthly per capita income between RM42.19 and RM84.38). Slightly more than half (52.7%) earned income above the poverty line. The average family size was 4.5, ranging from 1 through to 16. The majority of the heads of households (56.6%) had between 3 and 6 years of education, and 14.5% did not receive any formal education. The prevalence of stunting among children 0-5 years of age was 26%, while 31.5% were underweight and 3.8% wasted. Among children aged between 5 and 9 years, almost the same pattern of nutritional status was noted. The overall percentages of stunting, underweight and wasting among these children were 29.2%, 26.1% and 0.62%, respectively. Analysis on nutritional status according to income level showed a noticeable difference in the prevalence of malnutrition in children above and below the poverty line income. The Student's t-test indicated significant differences in weight-for-age and weight-for-height between the two poverty line income for children below 5 years of age. Pearson's correlation coefficient showed a significant correlation between height-for-age with household size (r = -0.26, p<0.05), and monthly per capita income with weight-for-height (r = 0.25, p<0.05). There was a highly significant correlation between acreage of land cultivated and weight-for-height (r = 0.42, p<0.01), and weight-for-age (r = 0.25, p<0.05). The findings indicated the influence of socio-economic factors on the nutritional status of children.