Review of oesophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula in hospital sultanah bahiyah, alor star 2000 - 2009

Esophageal atresia (EA) and tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF) are one of the congenital anomaly occurring in the newborns with the incidence of 1 in 2500 births seen worldwide. There were 47 patients with esophageal atresia admitted to HSB from January 2000 to December 2009, out of which 26 (55%) were males and 21 (45%) females. The distribution of patients by race were 34 Malays (72%), 9 Chinese (19%) and 4 Indians (9%). Out of 47 babies with TEF and EA, 36% of them had polyhdromnios in the antenatal evaluation. There were only 3 types of EA/TEF seen; Type A (9%), Type C (87%) and Type E (4%). The birth weight of the babies range from 0.8 kg to 4.0 kg. The smallest surviving baby weighing 1.1 kg. There was a significant association with the outcome of the surgery (p0.05). 23 (49%) of them were born with congenital malformation and there was a significant association with the outcome of the surgery (p<0.05). Based on the chest roentgenogram, 20 (43%) of them had pneumonia with significant association with the outcome (p<0.05). The mortality rate is 23% and the causes of death were severe pneumonia (36%), severe renal failure (18%), severe cardiac malformation (18%) and multiple congenital malformations (28%). Bremen classification is most suitable in determining the prognosis of the babies with TEF and EA in Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah, Alor Star. In conclusion, the outcome of EA and TEF is determined mainly by birth weight, congenital malformations and presence of preoperative pneumonia

Multi-Robot Learning with Bat Algorithm With Mutation (Bam)

The mobile robotics is an active area of research. Several methods are under study to increase and optimize the working capabilities of multi robotic systems. These multi robotic systems or robot swarms have vast applications in industry as a human assistant to carry goods and can-do variety of jobs. Multiple techniques like swarm optimization, cuckoo algorithm and other such algorithms are under study for multi robotic systems. In this research, a biological bat inspired algorithm is implemented to achieve the target. BAT algorithm is implemented to achieve the target. BAT algorithm uses echolocation technique like bats to generate bat population and random data is generated, the robot then traverses and the distance is calculated which is compared to the distance from the obstacle. The loop continues and robot keeps moving. For more than one robot, robots have statistic as well as dynamic obstacles. So, the traversal speed and efficiency of bad algorithm reduces slightly

A genetic comparison of two alleged subspecies of P hilippine cynomolgus macaques

Two subspecies of cynomolgus macaques ( Macaca fascicularis ) are alleged to co‐exist in the Philippines, M. f. philippensis in the north and M. f. fascicularis in the south. However, genetic differences between the cynomolgus macaques in the two regions have never been studied to document the propriety of their subspecies status. We genotyped samples of cynomolgus macaques from Batangas in southwestern Luzon and Zamboanga in southwestern Mindanao for 15 short tandem repeat (STR) loci and sequenced an 835 bp fragment of the mtDNA of these animals. The STR genotypes were compared with those of cynomolgus macaques from southern Sumatra, Singapore, Mauritius and Cambodia, and the mtDNA sequences of both Philippine populations were compared with those of cynomolgus macaques from southern Sumatra, Indonesia and Sarawak, Malaysia. We conducted STRUCTURE and PCA analyses based on the STRs and constructed a median joining network based on the mtDNA sequences. The Philippine population from Batangas exhibited much less genetic diversity and greater genetic divergence from all other populations, including the Philippine population from Zamboanga. Sequences from both Batangas and Zamboanga were most closely related to two different mtDNA haplotypes from Sarawak from which they are apparently derived. Those from Zamboanga were more recently derived than those from Batangas, consistent with their later arrival in the Philippines. However, clustering analyses do not support a sufficient genetic distinction of cynomolgus macaques from Batangas from other regional populations assigned to subspecies M. f. fascicularis to warrant the subspecies distinction M. f. philippensis . Am J Phys Anthropol 155:136–148, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108326/1/ajpa22564.pd

Disentangling the Taxonomy of the Mahseers (Tor spp.) of Malaysia: An Integrated Approach Using Morphology, Genetics and Historical Records

The establishment of appropriate taxonomic designations is essential for the effective management of fishery resources. Despite over a century of explorations and research, the cyprinid genus Tor represents a group of large-bodied freshwater fishes whose taxonomy and systematics remains poorly known. While five species of Tor are currently listed as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List, a further five out of 18 species currently recognized are assessed as “data deficient,” with at least one undescribed species, believed to be on the brink of extinction (i.e., the Humpback Mahseer endemic to the Cauvery River in India). Tor mahseers represent a suitable model for the application of an integrated approach using morphology, genetics, and historical records to resolve species identities, where one or more of these fundamental approaches may have been deficient in the past. Focusing specifically on the taxonomy and nomenclature of the Tor species recorded from Peninsular Malaysia, one of the aims of this review is to define the identity of two nominal species, T. tambra and T. tambroides. Original descriptions of these two nominal species contain little or practically no characters to distinguish them, and partly explains why secondary literature fails to conclusively determine species boundaries. A phylogenetic analysis of mahseer specimens from this region, based on publicly available and newly sequenced mitochondrial COX1 genes, does not support species designation based on previously established morphological features. More importantly, multiple tree-based species delimitation approaches showed that previously sequenced T. tambroides from Peninsular Malaysia and the newly described Tor species from Vietnam could not be delimited from the topotypic Tor tambra. A wider investigation of mahseer taxonomy covering all of Southeast Asia, using such an integrated approach is recommended to resolve the ambiguous taxonomy and is of profound importance for the conservation and management of exploited and farmed populations of these highly valued and iconic fish

Hydrodynamic Behaviour Change at Rambai River Outlet, Juru River Basin, Penang

ABSTRAC

An ontology for immune epitopes: application to the design of a broad scope database of immune reactivities

BACKGROUND: Epitopes can be defined as the molecular structures bound by specific receptors, which are recognized during immune responses. The Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB) project will catalog and organize information regarding antibody and T cell epitopes from infectious pathogens, experimental antigens and self-antigens, with a priority on NIAID Category A-C pathogens () and emerging/re-emerging infectious diseases. Both intrinsic structural and phylogenetic features, as well as information relating to the interactions of the epitopes with the host's immune system will be catalogued. DESCRIPTION: To effectively represent and communicate the information related to immune epitopes, a formal ontology was developed. The semantics of the epitope domain and related concepts were captured as a hierarchy of classes, which represent the general and specialized relationships between the various concepts. A complete listing of classes and their properties can be found at . CONCLUSION: The IEDB's ontology is the first ontology specifically designed to capture both intrinsic chemical and biochemical information relating to immune epitopes with information relating to the interaction of these structures with molecules derived from the host immune system. We anticipate that the development of this type of ontology and associated databases will facilitate rigorous description of data related to immune epitopes, and might ultimately lead to completely new methods for describing and modeling immune responses

Curation of complex, context-dependent immunological data

BACKGROUND: The Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB) is dedicated to capturing, housing and analyzing complex immune epitope related data . DESCRIPTION: To identify and extract relevant data from the scientific literature in an efficient and accurate manner, novel processes were developed for manual and semi-automated annotation. CONCLUSION: Formalized curation strategies enable the processing of a large volume of context-dependent data, which are now available to the scientific community in an accessible and transparent format. The experiences described herein are applicable to other databases housing complex biological data and requiring a high level of curation expertise