Citizen science frontiers horseshoe crab population regain at their spawning beach in East Peninsular Malaysia

Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda and Tachypleus gigas may co-exist and share common spawning grounds elsewhere but at Balok (East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia), C. rotundicauda is an understudied species. Neglected as research candidate because of inaccessible spawning grounds, smaller size and less commercial value than T. gigas and also, difficulty to attain from the wild has made C. rotundicauda population status remaining unidentified at Balok. This standpoint drove the present attempt because anthropic activities like structure placement and mining are point-source for runoffs that load sediments into Balok River. While erosion-accretion events have altered Balok River width, the shore sediments in Balok Beach were transitioned between medium-fine and fine sand between years 2012 and 2016. Eventually by year 2016, the C. rotundicauda were depositing 5117 eggs in 91 nests from 200 to 1000 m range along this corridor facing South China Sea. From this yield, C. rotundicauda released 2880 eggs in 56 nests during the Southwest monsoon, 1254 eggs in 19 nests during the Northeast monsoon and 983 eggs in 16 nests during the Inter-monsoon seasons. Though female C. rotundicauda opted to lay their eggs in shallow burrows at lower shorelines, the absence of erosion and substantial silt and clay (>20%) deposition facilitates C. rotundicauda embryogenesis with brief periods of temperature and salinity shocks during day-time falling tides. This encourages C. rotundicauda to emerge with increasing abundance and carry out bi-monthly spawning at Balok Beach. In short, shore restoration initiatives like systematic boat docking, proper disposal of nets and waste and, periodic fish-catching operations were effectively led by the Balok fisher citizen scientist. This successful community joint-cooperation proves that citizen-led caretaking of degraded beaches offers marine life protection and are practical for coastal area management especially at areas where other oviparous animals such as turtles and crocodiles are harboured

Trust and workplace spirituality on knowledge sharing behaviour: perspective from non-academic staff of higher learning institutions

This empirical research aims to, to add value in the existing research on knowledge sharing, investigate the antecedents of knowledge-sharing behaviour by embedding trust and workplace spirituality variable on non-academic staff from higher learning institution in Malaysia. The role of trust, perceived risk and workplace spirituality towards knowledge-sharing behaviour has attracted significant attention from researchers and practitioners to facilitate the culture of knowledge sharing in organization settings. Design/methodology/approach – The units of analysis include non-academic staffs who are currently working in different higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Apart from descriptive study, this research applied confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings – The result revealed that there is a strong relationship between workplace spirituality and knowledge-sharing behaviour. On the other hand, the perceived risk variables partially mediate the association between trust and knowledge-sharing behaviour. Research limitations/implications – This research is a cross-sectional study. As a result, the limited sample size in this study may have an effect on the power of generalizability. Further research may be necessary to confirm the model across different industry to reveal the nature of the knowledge-sharing behaviour among the staff. Practical implications – The findings from this research could help the policymakers and the respective authorities of higher learning institutions to create a knowledge-sharing culture that is needed to support knowledge sharing and knowledge management within the higher learning institutions. Originality/value – This research not only adds value to knowledge-sharing literature but also used the variable like workplace spirituality under the context of Malaysian higher learning institution. Keywords Workplace spirituality, Trust, Perceived risk, Higher learning institutions, Knowledge-sharing behaviour Paper type Research pape

Association of Diabetes Mellitus with Carotid Artery Stenosis Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Graft in Bangladesh: A Prospective Cross-Sectional Study

Md Abir Tazim Chowdhury,1 Dharmendra Joshi,2 Munama Magdum,3 Dipannita Adhikary,4 SMG Saklayen,5 Md Alauddin,6 Redoy Ranjan,4,6 Asit Baran Adhikary7 1Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Evercare Hospital Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 2Department of Cardiac Surgery, Shahid Gangalal National Heart Centre, Kathmandu, Nepal; 3Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 4Department of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK; 5Department of Vascular Surgery, Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital & Research Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 6Department of Cardiac Surgery, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 7Department of Cardiac Surgery, Impulse Hospital, Dhaka, BangladeshCorrespondence: Md Abir Tazim Chowdhury, Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Evercare Hospital Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tel +8801718123463, Email [email protected]: Atherosclerosis is a systemic vascular disease commonly affecting coronary and carotid arteries, particularly in diabetes mellitus (DM). This study assessed the association of DM with significant carotid artery stenosis (CAS) among the coronary artery disease (CAD) population undergoing isolated elective coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study evaluated 100 Bangladeshi CAD patients who underwent isolated elective CABG from January 2017 to September 2019. Initially, a univariate analysis curtails the risk patterns, followed by a Pearson correlation analysis of significant CAS and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c).Results: Although the majority of patients were male, females were higher in the diabetic than non-diabetic group (38.1% vs 15.5%; p=0.01). Overall, ~38% of diabetic patients had significantly higher ≥ 50% CAS. Further, 28.6% and 9.5% of the diabetic sample had 50– 70% and > 70% CAS, respectively, which is significantly (p =0.02) higher than the non-diabetic sample (8.6% and 1.7%, respectively). Additionally, diabetes was significantly more associated with both unilateral (31.0% vs 22.4%) and bilateral (45.2% vs 22.4%) CAS than the non-diabetic population (p=0.006). The Pearson correlation coefficient shows a significant positive association between higher glycated haemoglobin levels and > 50% CAS (correlation coefficient 0.270; p = 0.007).Conclusion: We found higher HbA1c had a significant positive correlation with > 50% CAS in diabetic patients undergoing elective CABG, recommending preoperative carotid screening, especially elderly individuals.Keywords: carotid artery stenosis, coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, duplex sca

Effects of shore sedimentation to tachypleus gigas (Müller, 1785) spawning activity from Malaysian waters

Ripraps, land reclamation and fishing jetty renovation were perturbing Balok Beach shores between the years 2011 and 2013 and visible impacts were scaled using horseshoe crab spawning yields. Initially, placement of ripraps at Balok Beach effectively reduced erosion and created a suitable spawning ground for the horseshoe crab, Tachypleus gigas. However sediments begun to gather on the beach onward year 2012 which increased shore elevation and caused complete shore surface transition into fine sand properties. This reduced sediment compaction and made Balok Beach less favourable for horseshoe crab spawning. During the dry Southwest monsoon, Balok River estuary retains more dense saline water which assists with sediment circulation at the river mouth section. Comparatively, the less dense freshwater during the wet Northeast monsoon channels sediments shoreward. Circa-tidal action that takes place at Balok River sorts the shore sediments to produce an elevated and steep beach. Hence, the reduced number of T. gigas nests and eggs retrieved during year 2013 (after comparing with yield of year 2012) at Balok Beach are indicating impacts from anthropic-caused sedimentation. Models need to be constructed and associated with T. gigas spawning-migration to fully understand sediment transport especially at coastal areas that need or are undergoing nourishment

Surgical site infection after gastrointestinal surgery in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: a prospective, international, multicentre cohort study

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common infections associated with health care, but its importance as a global health priority is not fully understood. We quantified the burden of SSI after gastrointestinal surgery in countries in all parts of the world. Methods: This international, prospective, multicentre cohort study included consecutive patients undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection within 2-week time periods at any health-care facility in any country. Countries with participating centres were stratified into high-income, middle-income, and low-income groups according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI). Data variables from the GlobalSurg 1 study and other studies that have been found to affect the likelihood of SSI were entered into risk adjustment models. The primary outcome measure was the 30-day SSI incidence (defined by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for superficial and deep incisional SSI). Relationships with explanatory variables were examined using Bayesian multilevel logistic regression models. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02662231. Findings: Between Jan 4, 2016, and July 31, 2016, 13 265 records were submitted for analysis. 12 539 patients from 343 hospitals in 66 countries were included. 7339 (58·5%) patient were from high-HDI countries (193 hospitals in 30 countries), 3918 (31·2%) patients were from middle-HDI countries (82 hospitals in 18 countries), and 1282 (10·2%) patients were from low-HDI countries (68 hospitals in 18 countries). In total, 1538 (12·3%) patients had SSI within 30 days of surgery. The incidence of SSI varied between countries with high (691 [9·4%] of 7339 patients), middle (549 [14·0%] of 3918 patients), and low (298 [23·2%] of 1282) HDI (p < 0·001). The highest SSI incidence in each HDI group was after dirty surgery (102 [17·8%] of 574 patients in high-HDI countries; 74 [31·4%] of 236 patients in middle-HDI countries; 72 [39·8%] of 181 patients in low-HDI countries). Following risk factor adjustment, patients in low-HDI countries were at greatest risk of SSI (adjusted odds ratio 1·60, 95% credible interval 1·05–2·37; p=0·030). 132 (21·6%) of 610 patients with an SSI and a microbiology culture result had an infection that was resistant to the prophylactic antibiotic used. Resistant infections were detected in 49 (16·6%) of 295 patients in high-HDI countries, in 37 (19·8%) of 187 patients in middle-HDI countries, and in 46 (35·9%) of 128 patients in low-HDI countries (p < 0·001). Interpretation: Countries with a low HDI carry a disproportionately greater burden of SSI than countries with a middle or high HDI and might have higher rates of antibiotic resistance. In view of WHO recommendations on SSI prevention that highlight the absence of high-quality interventional research, urgent, pragmatic, randomised trials based in LMICs are needed to assess measures aiming to reduce this preventable complication

Brain Tumor Segmentation and Classification from Sensor-Based Portable Microwave Brain Imaging System Using Lightweight Deep Learning Models

Automated brain tumor segmentation from reconstructed microwave (RMW) brain images and image classification is essential for the investigation and monitoring of the progression of brain disease. The manual detection, classification, and segmentation of tumors are extremely time-consuming but crucial tasks due to the tumor's pattern. In this paper, we propose a new lightweight segmentation model called MicrowaveSegNet (MSegNet), which segments the brain tumor, and a new classifier called the BrainImageNet (BINet) model to classify the RMW images. Initially, three hundred (300) RMW brain image samples were obtained from our sensors-based microwave brain imaging (SMBI) system to create an original dataset. Then, image preprocessing and augmentation techniques were applied to make 6000 training images per fold for a 5-fold cross-validation. Later, the MSegNet and BINet were compared to state-of-the-art segmentation and classification models to verify their performance. The MSegNet has achieved an Intersection-over-Union (IoU) and Dice score of 86.92% and 93.10%, respectively, for tumor segmentation. The BINet has achieved an accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and specificity of 89.33%, 88.74%, 88.67%, 88.61%, and 94.33%, respectively, for three-class classification using raw RMW images, whereas it achieved 98.33%, 98.35%, 98.33%, 98.33%, and 99.17%, respectively, for segmented RMW images. Therefore, the proposed cascaded model can be used in the SMBI system.This work was supported by the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), project grant code: DIP-2020-009. This work was also supported by Grant NPRP12S-0227-190164 from the Qatar National Research Fund, a member of Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar, and student grant from Qatar University, Grant # QUST-1-CENG-2023-796. The claims made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. Open access publication is supported by Qatar National Library.Scopu

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research