National University of Malaysia

About: National University of Malaysia is a education organization based out in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Heat transfer. The organization has 26593 authors who have published 41270 publications receiving 552683 citations. The organization is also known as: NUM & Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Relationship between anthropometric indicators and cognitive performance in Southeast Asian school-aged children

Abstract: Nutrition is an important factor in mental development and, as a consequence, in cognitive performance. Malnutrition is reflected in children’s weight, height and BMI curves. The present cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the association between anthropometric indices and cognitive performance in 6746 school-aged children (aged 6‐12 years) of four Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia; Malaysia; Thailand; Vietnam. Cognitive performance (non-verbal intelligence quotient (IQ)) was measured using Raven’s Progressive Matrices test or Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence, third edition (TONI-3). Height-for-age z-scores (HAZ), weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ) and BMI-for-age z-scores (BAZ) were used as anthropometric nutritional status indices. Data were weighted using age, sex and urban/rural weight factors to resemble the total primary school-aged population per country. Overall, 21 % of the children in the four countries were underweight and 19 % were stunted. Children with low WAZ were 3·5 times more likely to have a non-verbal IQ ,89 (OR 3·53 and 95 % CI 3·52, 3·54). The chance of having a non-verbal IQ ,89 was also doubled with low BAZ and HAZ. In contrast, except for severe obesity, the relationship between high BAZ and IQ was less clear and differed per country. The odds of having non-verbal IQ levels ,89 also increased with severe obesity. In conclusion, undernourishment and non-verbal IQ are significantly associated in 6‐12-year-old children. Effective strategies to improve nutrition in preschoolers and school-aged children can have a pronounced effect on cognition and, in the longer term, help in positively contributing to individual and national development.

Synthesis of cellulose hydrogel for copper (II) ions adsorption

Abstract: Hydrogel is a promising adsorbent for heavy metal removal. In order to conserve the environment by avoiding the hydrogel disposal problem after the adsorption process, this research work was carried out to explore the feasibility in synthesizing biodegradable cellulose hydrogel and cellulose/gelatin composite hydrogel. The effect of cross-linker volume percent and gelatin weight percent towards the adsorption capacity of hydrogels were investigated. Cellulose hydrogel with the lowest cross-linker volume percent, H6 (6 v/v%) has the greatest swelling ability (4650%), highest biodegradability rate (79.5%), and highest adsorption capacity (28.4 mg/g) compared to other cellulose hydrogels. Less compact structure of H6 has the potential to facilitate the movement of Cu2+ ions into the hydrogel network, increased the accessibility of the Cu2+ ions onto the active sites of the hydrogel, and thus enhanced its characteristics and adsorption performance. The addition of gelatin into cellulose hydrogel network has further improved the swelling ability and adsorption capacity of cellulose/gelatin composite hydrogel attributed to the presence of amine group from gelatin which has stronger affinity towards water absorption and presented stronger binding propensity towards Cu2+ ions. The experiment data was fitted better to the Freundlich model, indicating the occurrence of multilayer adsorption. This success of this research study has confirmed the potential application of cellulose hydrogel and cellulose/gelatin composite hydrogel as a more sustainable and environmental-friendly adsorbent for the removal of heavy metal from wastewater.

Permanent Genetic Resources added to Molecular Ecology Resources Database 1 August 2009–30 September 2009

Abstract: This article documents the addition of 238 microsatellite marker loci and 72 pairs of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) sequencing primers to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Adelges tsugae, Artemisia tridentata, Astroides calycularis, Azorella selago, Botryllus schlosseri, Botrylloides violaceus, Cardiocrinum cordatum var. glehnii, Campylopterus curvipennis, Colocasia esculenta, Cynomys ludovicianus, Cynomys leucurus, Cynomys gunnisoni, Epinephelus coioides, Eunicella singularis, Gammarus pulex, Homoeosoma nebulella, Hyla squirella, Lateolabrax japonicus, Mastomys erythroleucus, Pararge aegeria, Pardosa sierra, Phoenicopterus ruber ruber and Silene latifolia. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Adelges abietis, Adelges cooleyi, Adelges piceae, Pineus pini, Pineus strobi, Tubastrea micrantha, three other Tubastrea species, Botrylloides fuscus, Botrylloides simodensis, Campylopterus hemileucurus, Campylopterus rufus, Campylopterus largipennis, Campylopterus villaviscensio, Phaethornis longuemareus, Florisuga mellivora, Lampornis amethystinus, Amazilia cyanocephala, Archilochus colubris, Epinephelus lanceolatus, Epinephelus fuscoguttatus, Symbiodinium temperate-A clade, Gammarus fossarum, Gammarus roeselii, Dikerogammarus villosus and Limnomysis benedeni. This article also documents the addition of 72 sequencing primer pairs and 52 allele specific primers for Neophocaena phocaenoides.