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Costal exostosis is a typically benign tumor growth of the rib that usually remains asymptomatic but sometimes can develop a severe complication such as hemothorax and required emergency surgery. At this moment, we presented a case of 20 years old gentleman with no previous history of trauma presented to our hospital with progressively worsening shortness of breath and computed tomography of chest show features of hemothorax. He subsequently underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic that found costal exostosis perforating the lung. The costal exostosis subsequently resected, and post-operatively he was discharged well. We, with this, presented a rare case of costal exostosis, along with the discussion on clinical presentation and management.

Costal exostosis is a typically benign tumor growth of the rib that usually remains asymptomatic but sometimes can develop a severe complication such as hemothorax and required emergency surgery. At this moment, we presented a case of 20 years old gentleman with no previous history of trauma presented to our hospital with progressively worsening shortness of breath and computed tomography of chest show features of hemothorax. He subsequently underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic that found costal exostosis perforating the lung. The costal exostosis subsequently resected, and post-operatively he was discharged well. We, with this, presented a rare case of costal exostosis, along with the discussion on clinical presentation and management.

Costal exostosis is a typically benign tumor growth of the rib that usually remains asymptomatic but sometimes can develop a severe complication such as hemothorax and required emergency surgery. At this moment, we presented a case of 20 years old gentleman with no previous history of trauma presented to our hospital with progressively worsening shortness of breath and computed tomography of chest show features of hemothorax. He subsequently underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic that found costal exostosis perforating the lung. The costal exostosis subsequently resected, and post-operatively he was discharged well. We, with this, presented a rare case of costal exostosis, along with the discussion on clinical presentation and management.

Costal exostosis is a typically benign tumor growth of the rib that usually remains asymptomatic but sometimes can develop a severe complication such as hemothorax and required emergency surgery. At this moment, we presented a case of 20 years old gentleman with no previous history of trauma presented to our hospital with progressively worsening shortness of breath and computed tomography of chest show features of hemothorax. He subsequently underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic that found costal exostosis perforating the lung. The costal exostosis subsequently resected, and post-operatively he was discharged well. We, with this, presented a rare case of costal exostosis, along with the discussion on clinical presentation and management.

Costal exostosis is a typically benign tumor growth of the rib that usually remains asymptomatic but sometimes can develop a severe complication such as hemothorax and required emergency surgery. At this moment, we presented a case of 20 years old gentleman with no previous history of trauma presented to our hospital with progressively worsening shortness of breath and computed tomography of chest show features of hemothorax. He subsequently underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic that found costal exostosis perforating the lung. The costal exostosis subsequently resected, and post-operatively he was discharged well. We, with this, presented a rare case of costal exostosis, along with the discussion on clinical presentation and management.

CP Chong,1 S Shahar,1 H Haron,1 N Che Din21Centre for Healthy Aging and Wellness, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Pahang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 2Psychology Program, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Pahang, Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaBackground: Sugar is widely consumed in Malaysia, and the excessive intake of sugar has been associated with cognitive functions. However, the association between sugar intake and cognitive impairment among Malaysian older adults is yet to be determined.Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the associations between types and sources of sugar intake and cognitive functions and to identify their risk in predicting cognitive impairment (MMSE score <24).Subjects and methods: A total of 1,209 subjects aged ≥60 years were recruited through multi-stage random sampling from selected states in Malaysia. Dietary intake was derived using a 7-day dietary history questionnaire and supplemented with a quantitative food frequency questionnaire for added sugar intake.Results: The prevalence of cognitive impairment as defined by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) less than 24 was 31.9%, while the prevalence of mild cognitiveimpairment was 13.1%. The median (IQR) for total sugar intake was 44.60 g/day (26.21–68.81) or 8 tsp, and free sugar intake was 33.08 g/day (17.48–57.26) or 6 tsp. The higher intake of total sugars, free sugars, sucrose, lactose, sugar-sweetened beverages, sugar-sweetened cakes, and dessert was found to be significantly associated with a lower MMSE score, after adjusting for covariates. On the other hand, the consumption of cooked dishes and fruits was significantly associated with a better MMSE score. The adjusted OR for risk of cognitive impairment (MMSE score <24) was 3.30 (95% CI 2.15–5.08) for total sugars and 3.58 (95% CI 2.32–5.52) for free sugars, comparing the highest with the

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate whether the revised Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance in 2007 enhances earnings conservatism. In addition, the authors examine the relationship between board of directors’ expertise and conservatism. The third objective is to investigate the relationship between audit committee characteristics and earnings conservatism. Design/methodology/approach: The sample of this study is based on 3,183 firm-year observations for a period of 2004-2009. The authors hand collected the corporate governance variables, whereas the remaining data were extracted from Compustat Global. The authors used two measures of conservatism. The first is the market-based model by Basu’s (1997), and the second measure is the accrual-based measure by Ball and Shivakumar (2005). Findings: The authors find that the revision of Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance 2007 results in improving earnings conservatism. The authors find two audit committee characteristics, namely, audit committee financial expertise and independence increase earnings conservatism, after 2007. However, the authors could not find support whether board financial expertise mix affect conservatism. Research limitations/implications: This study did not consider other possible corporate governance variables that could influence earnings conservatism, as it would be a difficult task to gather them. Originality/value: The authors provide evidence on the role of corporate governance and earnings conservatism in Malaysia.

In many developed countries, many business incubators take part to help starts-up company to develop their own business; especially the baby born business cannot compete with the giant industries that have become the old business players. Universities play an important role in motivating young graduates to become technology entrepreneur. Unemployment in Indonesia is still the main issue for the government program to increase welfare in the future. In year 2014 the data from Statistic Center of Indonesia state that Indonesia has 4% unemployment from Indonesia' work generation. In Indonesia, incubators has been developed since 1992 initiated by the government, Cooperative Department and also universities. This effort continued in 1997 when there was a program called the Development of Entrepreneurship Culture in universities, and of its activity was New Entrepreneur Incubator. The objectives of the research are to investigate the success factor for e-business incubator, and to propose and develop a framework for successful e-business incubator for public universities in Indonesia. Research location is in Indonesia for the public universities that have their e-business incubator. This research will conduct quantitative and qualitative analyses based on data collection from incubator managers and business founders in Indonesia. The result of this research is a framework for successful e-business incubator in Indonesian public universities.

A big challenge for classification on text is the noisy of text data. It makes classification quality low. Many classification process can be divided into two sequential steps scoring and threshold setting (thresholding). Therefore to deal with noisy data problem, it is important to describe positive feature effectively scoring and to set a suitable threshold. Most existing text classifiers do not concentrate on these two jobs. In this paper, we propose a novel text classifier with pattern-based scoring that describe positive feature effectively, followed by threshold setting. The thresholding is based on score of training set, make it is simple to implement in other scoring methods. Experiment shows that our pattern-based classifier is promising.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the audit pricing literature by examining whetherinstitutional investors and political connection are associated with higher audit fees.Design/methodology/approach – Both descriptive and multivariate analyses are employed toaddress the research objectives. In addition, the authors use panel data to control for bothheterocedasticity and contemporaneous correlations in each cross-section.Findings – Based on a panel analysis of 390 Malaysian firms from 1999 to 2003, a positiverelationship between institutional ownership and audit fees is found, although the economic impact isminimal. Further, the authors find that audit fees are higher for politically connected firms.Research limitations/implications – A thorough examination on the role of political connection ismuch warranted to provide a better understanding on such connection influences the audit market.Originality/value – This paper provides an alternative view on the role of political connection, andon how they influence the audit market

Learning to operate medical equipment is one of the essential skills for providing efficient treatment to patients. One of the current problems faced by many medical institutions is the lack or shortage of specialized infrastructure for medical practitioners to conduct hands-on training. Medical equipment is mostly used for patients, limiting training time drastically. Virtual simulation can help alleviate this problem by providing the virtual embodiment of the medical facility in an affordable manner. This paper reports the current results of an ongoing project aimed at providing virtual reality-based technical training on various medical equipment to radiophysicist trainees. In particular, we introduce a virtual reality (VR) prototype of a linear accelerator simulator for oncological radiotherapy training. The paper discusses the main challenges and features of the VR prototype, including the system design and implementation. A key factor for trainees’ access and usability is the user interface, particularly tailored in our prototype to provide a powerful and versatile yet friendly user interaction.

Image segmentation is a fundamental step for image processing of medical images. One of the most important tasks in this step is border reconstruction, which consists of constructing a border curve separating the organ or tissue of interest from the image background. This problem can be formulated as an optimization problem, where the border curve is computed through data fitting procedures from a collection of data points assumed to lie on the boundary of the object under analysis. However, standard mathematical optimization techniques do not provide satisfactory solutions to this problem. Some recent papers have applied evolutionary computation techniques to tackle this issue. Such works are only focused on the polynomial case, ignoring the more powerful (but also more difficult) case of rational curves. In this paper, we address this problem with rational Bézier curves by applying the firefly algorithm, a popular bio-inspired swarm intelligence technique for optimization. Experimental results on medical images of melanomas show that this method performs well and can be successfully applied to this problem.

3D printing, regarded as the most popular additive manufacturing technology, is finding many applications in various industrial sectors. Along with the increasing number of its industrial applications, reducing its material consumption and increasing the strength of 3D printed objects have become an important topic. In this paper, we introduce unidirectionally and bidirectionally stiffened structures into 3D printing to increase the strength and stiffness of 3D printed objects and reduce their material consumption. To maximize the advantages of such stiffened structures, we investigated finite element analysis, especially for general cases of stiffeners in arbitrary positions and directions, and performed optimization design to minimize the total volume of stiffened structures. Many examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed finite element analysis and optimization design as well as significant reductions in the material costs and stresses in 3D printed objects stiffened with unidirectional and bidirectional stiffeners.

By extending the work published at ICCS 2020 [1], in this paper we propose a method to achieve cost-effective 3D printing of stiffened thin-shell objects. Our proposed method consists of three parts. The first part integrates finite element analysis, Voronoi diagram, and conformal mapping to obtain stiffener distribution. The second part combines finite element analysis with optimization calculations to determine the optimal sizes of stiffeners. And the third part introduces Monte-Carlo simulation to find a global optimum. The experiments made in this paper indicate that our proposed method is effective in minimizing 3D printing material consumption of stiffened thin-shell objects.

3D printing has been widely used in daily life, industry, architecture, aerospace, crafts, art, etc. Minimizing 3D printing material consumption can greatly reduce the costs. Therefore, how to design 3D printed objects with less materials while maintain structural soundness is an important problem. The current treatment is to use thin shells. However, thin shells have low strength. In this paper, we use stiffeners to stiffen 3D thin-shell objects for increasing the strength of the objects and propose a stress guided optimization framework to achieve minimum material consumption. First, we carry out finite element calculations to determine stress distribution in 3D objects and use the stress distribution to guide random generation of some points called seeds. Then we map the 3D objects and seeds to a 2D space and create a Voronoi Diagram from the seeds. The stiffeners are taken to be the edges of the Voronoi Diagram whose intersections with the edges of each of the triangles used to represent the polygon models of the 3D objects are used to define stiffeners. The obtained intersections are mapped back to 3D polygon models and the cross-section size of stiffeners is minimized under the constraint of the required strength. Monte-Carlo simulation is finally introduced to repeat the process from random seed generation to cross-section size optimization of stiffeners. Many experiments are presented to demonstrate the proposed framework and its advantages.

This paper presents a partial differential equation (PDE)-based surface modelling and simulation framework for lily flowers. We use a PDE-based surface modelling technique to represent shape of a lily flower and PDE-based dynamic simulation to animate blossom and decay processes of lily flowers. To this aim, we first automatically construct the geometry of lily flowers from photos to obtain feature curves. Second, we apply a PDE-based surface modelling technique to generate sweeping surfaces to obtain geometric models of the flowers. Then, we use a physics-driven and data-based method and introduce the flower shapes at the initial and final positions into our proposed dynamic deformation model to generate a realistic deformation of flower blossom and decay. The results demonstrate that our proposed technique can create realistic flower models and their movements and shape changes against time efficiently with a small data size.

Surface reconstruction is the main process of reverse engineering where engineering model is reproduced in digital format. Surface reconstruction using PDE can be described as solving the PDE to generate the reconstructed surface of an object of interest. This paper provides a brief introduction to the process of surface reconstruction, partial differential equation and its application in surface reconstruction, as well as summarizing several works that utilize this approach. This paper also outlines the validation method used to assess a reconstruction model.