Safety assessment for traditional herbal medicinal products such as “jamu” and “makjun” in Malaysia include the laboratory tests for heavy metals, microbiology and scheduled poisons. Test for aflatoxins is not included. Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is genotoxic and carcinogenic. Its possible contamination in these products should be ruled out. In this study, 12 samples of “jamu” and “makjun”, analyzed using IAC clean-up and HPLC were found to have a mean levels of positive samples (incidence) as 0.97 (17%), 0.24 (17%), 0.92 (8%), 0.30 (8%) and 1.82 (17%) µg/kg, and the range was 0.94 - 0.99, 0.06 - 0.42, 0.92, 0.30 and 1.00 - 2.63 µg/kg, for AFB1, AFB2, AFG1,AFG2 and total AF, respectively. Low contamination level might be attributed to the antifungal effects of some medicinal herbs.  ..

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While tertiary education provides many benefits to the individual, the community and the nation, we cannot deny that the cost is high and continues to rise each year. The younger generation have to take up loans to finance their study costs and then they have to pay back  the loans after completing their studies. As such, the funds from the parents can be seen as an alternative which could help in realizing the tertiary education goal. The question is, do the parents realize and know the importance of tertiary education savings? Have they saved for their children’s education? How much do they save per month? Are the savings enough for their children’s university education? What is the savings medium utilized to make savings? Therefore, this paper focuses on two main objectives. The first objective is to identify the patterns of children's tertiary education savings among parents in Malaysia and the second objective is to determine the medium of saving used by parents to save their.....

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This work reports the synthesis, characterization and in vitro response of a novel chitosan-hydroxyapatite composite doped with magnesium. Hydroxyapatite (HA), magnesium doped HA, chitosan-hydroxyapatite composite and the novel magnesium doped chitosan-hydroxyapatite composite were synthesised using coprecipitation method. The effects of magnesium and chitosan incorporation on the structural properties of the samples were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Bioactivity studies of the samples in simulated body fluid (SBF) was carried out. The incorporation of magnesium and chitosan into the lattice of the HA reduced the crystallinity and crystallite size of the HA. The chemical composition of the novel magnesium doped chitosan-HA composite was found to have resemblance to that of bone mineral. The novel material showed good bioactivity in SBF.     ..

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This study was conducted to test the validity and reliability of Strategical Instrument on Memorizing al-Quran (ISMEQ) using Rasch Measurement Model that was aided with the Winstep 3.72 software. This instrument contains 54 items that consist of four construct and 10 sub-construct. The first construct was the objective strategy with two sub-construct which were the ability to memorize with a given timeline and the ability to memorize by per page a day. Meanwhile, the second construct was planning strategy with a sub-construct that consist of prior, during and after memorizing planning. The third construct was memorizing enforcement activity with two sub-construct which were preservation of hafazan and practice. Then, the fourth construct was effective strategy with four sub-construct whichconsist of internal and external motivational, interest and behavior. This study was conducted  on 31 SMA Imtiyaz Besut students and 55 students from SMKA Kota Kinabalu. The result from this study sh.....

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This study was conducted to test the validity and reliability of Strategical Instrument on Memorizing al-Quran (ISMEQ) using Rasch Measurement Model that was aided with the Winstep 3.72 software. This instrument contains 54 items that consist of four construct and 10 sub-construct. The first construct was the objective strategy with two sub-construct which were the ability to memorize with a given timeline and the ability to memorize by per page a day. Meanwhile, the second construct was planning strategy with a sub-construct that consist of prior, during and after memorizing planning. The third construct was memorizing enforcement activity with two sub-construct which were preservation of hafazan and practice. Then, the fourth construct was effective strategy with four sub-construct which consist of internal and external motivational, interest and behavior. This study was conducted on 31 SMA Imtiyaz Besut students and 55 students from SMKA Kota Kinabalu. The result from this study sho.....

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The  current  practice  in  teaching  Chemistry  subject  is found  to  be  teacher-centered  where  teachersengage actively  in  transmitting  knowledge  while  students  act  as  passive  recipientsof  knowledge.  This  might  affect students’ mastery in learning three representation levels of Chemistry (macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic). As a result, students tend to formanon-scientific understanding and develop an alternative concept. The shift to Blended Problem-based Learning (BPBL) is therefore potential to help overcome this problem. Thus, this study is  aimed atinvestigatingthe  roles  of  teacher  and  students  in  overcoming  the  formation of  alternative  conceptsfor  three  representation  levels  of  Chemistry inBPBL.  This  study  applies acase  study  research  design. Two teachers  and  20  students  from  two  different  Fully  Residential  Schools  are  selected using purposive  sampling technique. .....

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The  purpose  of  this  study  was  to  investigate  the effect  of  student’s  problem  solving  abilities  with  contextual approaches. Student’sproblem solving ability is still low because the teacher does not associate mathematics material with  student's  real  world  situations.  In  addition,  students  are  also  less  active  especially  to  find  mathematical concepts. To overcome this problem, a Contextual Approach was applied in mathematics learning. This research is a quasi-experimental  research  using  a  quantitative  approach.  The  research  population  was students  of grade IX students at SMPN 1 Bayang. The used technique for sampling is random sampling. The research sample was of class IX.2 as an experimental class and class IX.3 as a control class. The  used instrument was a  problem solving ability test  and questionnaire.  Data  obtained  through  tests  were  analyzed  using  two-way  variance  analysis.�.....

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In this paper, an intuitionistic fuzzy B-spline space curve is defined and some of its properties is introduced. Firstly, intuitionistic fuzzy control point is defined based on intuitionistic fuzzy and geometrical modeling concepts. Each of the control point relation that consists of three function is find and shown. Later, the control point is blended with B-spline basis function and intuitionistic fuzzy B-spline curve is visualized. Some of the control point and space curve properties in the Euclidean space is also discussed throughout this paper  ..

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Extrema points are usually applied to solve everyday problems, for example, to determine the potential of a created tool and for optimisation. In this study, extrema points were used to help determine the region of interest (ROI) for the iris  in  iris  recognition  systems.  Iris  recognitionis  an  automated  method  ofbiometricidentification  that  uses mathematical  pattern-recognition  techniques  on  the  images  of  one  or  both irisesof  an  individual'seyes,  where  the complex patterns are unique, stable, and can be seen from a distance. In orderto obtain accurate results, the iris must be localised correctly. Hence, to address this issue, this paper proposed a method of iris localisation in the case of ideal and non-ideal iris images. In this study, the algorithm was based on finding the classification for the region of interest (ROI) with the help of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) by applying a histogram of grey level values as a descriptor in each.....

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Numerous decisions in our daily lives require the ability to calculate, solve problems, and employ concepts and skills in mathematics. However, students always have bad perceptions in mathematics as this subject is often challenging for  students  to  master.Reports  on  issues  about  students’  mathematical  education  have  been  raised  by  many mathematics educators. Among of the issues are about difficulties in understanding mathematical concepts, attitudes towards  mathematics,  low  achievement  in  mathematics  and  many  more.  Hence,  the  aim  of  this  study  is  to  explore students’  perceptions  and  attitudes  towards  mathematics  by  analyzing  the  impact  of  teaching  application  of mathematics  to  the  students.  The  data  were  collected  from  Computer  Science  students  where  each  participant  was assigned to complete self-reported and close ended questionnaire. In this study, examination on .....

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