DOA SEBELUM BELAJAR / PENERANG HATI

Untuk kengkawan seperjuangan..RPPJJ USM 2008/2009 satu doa untuk amalan bersama....

Kutemukan satu lagi do’a sebelum belajar pada sumber Mafatihul Jinan, kunci-kunci surga.
Ini dia
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
اللهم صل على محمد وآل محمد
اَللَّهُمَّ اَخْرِجْنِي مِنْ ظُلُمَاتِ الْوَهْمِ، وَاَكْرِمْنِي بِنُوْرِ الْفَهْمِ. اَللَّهُمَّ افْتَحْ عَلَيْنَا اَبْوَابَ رَحْمَتِكَ، وَانْشُرْ عَلَيْنَا خَزَآئِنَ عُلُوْمِكَ بِرَحْمَتِكَ يَااَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِيْنَ.
Bismillâhir Rahmânir Rahîm
Allâhumma shalli ‘alâ Muhammadin wa âli Muhammad
Allâhumma akhrijnî min zhulumâtil wahmi, wa akrimnî bi nûril fahmi. Allâhummaftah ‘alaynâ abwâba rahmatika, wansyur ‘alaynâ khazâina ‘ulûmi- ka birahmatika yâ Arhamar râhimîn.
Dengan asma AllahYang Maha Pengasih dan Maha Penyayang
Ya Allah, sampaikan shalawat kepada Rasulullah dan keluarganya
Ya Allah, keluarkan aku dari gelapnya kebingungan dan muliakan aku dengan cahaya pemahaman. Ya Allah, bukakan kepada kami pintu-pintu rahmat-Mu, dan curahkan kepada kami khazanah-khazanah ilmu-Mu dengan rahmat-Mu wahai Yang Maha Pengasih dari segala yang mengasihi.

p.s : aku jumpa ni masa surfing tadi....
Adios....

Mengapa Kecewa!!!

Frust , kecewa dan putus asa sering melanda kebanyakan masyarakat hari ini.Ada isteri yang kecewa dengan suaminya, suami kecewa dengan isteri, ibu bapa kecewa dengan anak-anak. Tak kurang juga yang kecewa melihat orang lain beroleh kejayaan, sedangkan diri sendiri masih kekurangan.Kecewa sering dikaitkan dengan stress dan dalam keadaan stress manusia boleh bertindak di luar dugaan.Islam agama motivasi, agama memajukan diri dan mempertingkatkan prestasi hidup dalam segala bidang.Oleh itu, tidak timbul rasa kecewa atau putus asa, sekiranya tidak berjaya setelah penat berusaha. Ini kerana bagi orang-orang beriman, mereka tahu sebagai hamba, mereka tidak berhak terhadap sesuatu melainkan yang telah Allah S.W.T tentukan. Setiap orang memang dikehendaki berusaha, tetapi sama ada berjaya atau tidak, hanya Allah yang menentukan. Setiap sesuatu itu ada hikmahnya yang Allah rahsiakan. Perkara yang seseorang itu rasa baik tidak semestinya baik di sisi Allah. Sebaliknya yang tidak baik pd kita, tidak semestinya tidak baik pada Allah. Manusia cuma nampak pd yang baik. Pada hal dalam perhitungan Allah, ada perkara yang kita tidak suka tetapi disukai Allah. Misalnye dalam kehidupan berumahtangga seperti dijelaskan dalam Firman Allah S.W.T yang maksudnya : Kemudian bila kamu tidak menyukai mereka (maka bersabarlah) kerana mungkin kamu tidak menyukai sesuatu, padahal Allah menjadikan padanya kebaikan yang banyak. (A n Nisaa :19). Sebagai contoh lagi: A keluar rumah berusaha untuk mencari rezeki,manakala B tidak keluar rumah. Walaupun A tidak berhasil, sebab Qada Tuhan dia memang tidak ada rezeki hari tu. B tidak boleh berkata: untung aku tidak keluar, tidak berusaha, sedangkan A yang berusaha pun tidak mendapat hasil. Mungkin A berusaha mencari rezeki dan dengan Qada Tuhan tidak berhasil, tetapi Allah redha dan berkati usaha itu A diberi ganjaran pahala.



Menyerah diri tidak bermakna berserah bulat-bulat seperti kata-kata: Memang sudah ditakdirkan hidup saya miskin. Tetapi setakat mana usaha yang telah dilakukan. Jika belum berusaha tidak boleh berkata, ia adalah takdir.Ketenangan jiwa diperolehi oleh orang-orang yang pasrah menerima sesuatu itu sebagai ketentuan Allah. Firman Allah S.W.T yang maksudnya: "Sesungguhnya orang-orang beriman itu adalah mereka yang apabila disebut nama Allah gementarlah hati mereka, dan apabila dibacakan kepada mereka ayat-ayatNya, bertambahlah iman mereka (kerananya) dan kepada Tuhanlah mereka bertawakkal." (Al Anfaal:2)



Manusia mudah berputus asa kerana melihat sesuatu dari satu sudut sahaja. Mereka lupa di sebalik kelemahan mereka itu ada kekuatannya dan disebalik kekuatan mereka itu ada kelemahannya. Kecemerlangan seseorang tidak seharusnya dilihat dari segi kejayaan akademik atau kekayaan sahaja, tetapi cemerlang manusia sepatutnya dilihat dari berbagai sudut umpamanya hari ini ramai orang kecewa apabila anak mereka tidak cemerlang dalam pelajaran kerana jarang orang melihat kecemerlangan dalam bentuk anak soleh dan berakhlak mulia. Janganlah beranggapan apabila Allah memberi Rahmat dengan rezeki melimpah ruah sebagai satu nikmat semata-mata, sebaliknya anggaplah ia juga satu ujian kerana ujian Allah tidak semestinya dalam bentuk kesusahan. Ramai orang yang diuji dengan kesusahan menghampirkan diri kepada Allah, tetapi tidak ramai orang yang diberi nikmat semakin mendekati Allah. Kehidupan kita ada dua dimensi masa-tidak semestinya di dunia susah di akhirat pun susah. Tidak semestinya di dunia senang di akhirat juga senang. Bergantung kepada pengisian dan amalan semasa hidup. Allah S.W.T berfirman: Dan apa saja yang diberikan kepada kamu, maka itu adalah kenikmatan hidup duniawi dan perhiasannya; sedang apa yang di sisi Allah adalah lebih baik dan lebih kekal. Maka apakah kamu tidak memahaminya? Maka apakah orang yang Kami janjikan kepadanya suatu janji yang baik(syurga) lalu ia memperolehnya, sama dengan orang yang Kami berikan kepadanya kenikmatan hidup duniawi, kemudian dia dihari kiamat termasuk orang-orang yang diseret ke dalam neraka? (Al Qashash:60-61)

p.s : buat teman2 yang sama2 mengambil RPPJJ USM 2008/2009 moga artikel ini membantu kita semua....Adios...

Menopausal melatonin and isoflavones

The female menopause subjects women to a host of unpleasant effects, some of which come and go while others, like osteoporosis, progress silently and steadily. They are attributed to the permanent decrease of estrogen in the body, but that does have at least one benefit - cessation of the menstrual cycle. The unpredictable symptoms of the menopause include hot flushes, which can persist erratically for up to five years, night sweats, insomnia and joint pain.

The standard treatment of menopausal symptoms is hormone replacement therapy. This replaces the lost estrogen, which is actually a combination of three distinct compounds (estrone, estradiol and estriol), with a combination of estrogen and progesterone. However, the therapy can produce its own side effects, such as weight gain, water retention, irritability and depression, while long-term use increases the risk of breast cancer, endometrial cancer, deep vain thrombosis and stroke.

Unsurprisingly, many women have been looking for alternative treatments and soy extracts have become a major player in the market. They contain natural plant hormones which might possess estrogen-like properties but the research in this area has so far been inconclusive.

One comprehensive study in the USA concluded that a phytoestrogen-rich soy supplement reduced the severity of hot flushes by 50% but the placebo group enjoyed a 35% decrease. However, the frequency of the hot flushes was not reduced at all. A separate review of 12 studies with soy and soy extracts suggested that they might have a modest effect in reducing hot flushes, commenting that "foods that contain phytoestrogens show promise for the treatment of menopause symptoms."

Encouraged by the apparent benefits, many companies have brought soy-based products to the market. Unlike drugs, these "natural" remedies can escape the attentions of national regulatory institutes, so their own side effects have not been fully examined. Despite large sales volumes, there is currently limited data available on their safety.

One key factor in any safety test is the content of the active ingredients, which are presumed to be isoflavones such as daidzein, genistein and glycitein and their respective glycosides. There are numerous published methods for determining these compounds in soy extracts but they do not apply fully to a new preparation that has been launched. This has an added ingredient, melatonin, for treating insomnia.

Melatonin is a natural hormone secreted by the pineal gland that controls the circadian rhythm which governs our sleep patterns. It has been on the market as a sleep adjuster to help overcome jet lag and has now made its way into a new formulation, produced in Italy, for alleviating some menopausal symptoms.

Ideally, for quality control, one method should be available for all ingredients of a product, so Italian scientists from the University of Bologna have investigated the suitability of HPLC and micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) for the new product. Maria Augusta Raggi and colleagues began by analysing standard solutions before transferring the method to the product itself.

They analysed melatonin and the main isoflavones which were daidzein, genistein, glycitein and the glucopyranosides of daidzein and genistein. Folic acid, clozapine and quetiapine were used as internal standards. The contents of the commercial capsules were extracted with aqueous methanol and the supernatant was retained.

For MEKC with diode array detection, the supernatant was diluted further with aqueous methanol and the optimum background electrolyte was basic carbonate buffer (pH 10.3) in methanol containing sodium dodecyl sulphate. Complete separation was achieved within 15 minutes with a capillary 63.5 cm long. The MEKC linearity was good and the detection limits ranged from 0.5-1.6 µg/L for the isoflavones to 3.3 µg/L for melatonin.

Turning to the HPLC separation, the researchers tested two detectors. In the first, a C18 column was used with an acetonitrile-acidic phosphate buffer (pH 3.0) and UV detection. The analytes were resolved within 14 minutes with detection limits of 0.1-0.5 ng/mL for the isoflavones and 1.0 ng/mL for melatonin.

The second HPLC method used the same column and mobile phase, with amperometric detection at an oxidation potential of +0.8 V. The detection limits were similar to those from UV detection, at 0.1-0.3 ng/mL for all six analytes.

The three methods gave total capsule contents for the five isoflavones of 80.5, 81.5 and 81.1% of the declared levels for MEKC, HPLC-UV and HPLC-ED, respectively. This corresponded to 32.4 mg/capsule, compared with the declared 40 mg. The difference was attributed to the presence of minor isoflavones that were not included in the method.

The calculated contents of melatonin were 95.3, 97.1 and 96.2%, respectively, of the declared levels, corresponding to 4.81 mg/ capsule, very close to the stated level of 5 mg.

So, the methods gave similar results to each other for the capsules and appear to be equally suitable. However, the much higher sensitivities of the HPLC methods make them more suitable for the analysis of melatonin and the isoflavones in the blood of patients, which are the subject of ongoing studies by the research group.

Related links:

Journal of Separation Science 2008, 31, 1851-1859: "Comparison of analytical methods for the quality control of a new formulation containing soy extract and melatonin"

Choc-a-bloc with flavour enhancers

All chocoholics yearn for the intense sensation of pleasure to be gained by placing a piece of milk chocolate in the mouth. Apparently, it is not only due to the guilt some feel by eating this luxurious food, but also due to the release of endorphins in the brain. These are natural hormones that generate feelings of pleasure and well-being and probably contribute to the "warm glow" reported by susceptible consumers.

There are other chemicals among the 300 or so in chocolate that might also stimulate cravings. Neurotransmitters like phenylethylamine, which can trigger the pleasure centres of the brain, and the amino acid tryptophan, which helps the brain to produce serotonin that can produce feelings of elation, are two candidates. Theobromine is a smooth muscle relaxant that acts in the lungs and caffeine is the well-known central nervous system stimulant that we know from coffee and tea.

However, some scientists argue that the amounts of these chemicals found in chocolate are far too low to have any noticeable effect. Many of them are found in other foods that do not have the same appeal as chocolate.

Natural chocolate has a bitter taste, the darker the more bitter. So, many producers add a range of flavour enhancers to modify the taste in pure chocolate and chocolate-based products to make them more palatable. These additives include maltol and ethyl maltol, which mask bitter-tasting compounds and heighten the creamy and rich tones. Vanillin, vanillic acid and ethyl vanillin all add that creamy, milky vanilla flavour. In fact, 75% of the market for vanillin as a flavour is taken up by the chocolate and ice cream industries.

For consumers, taste modification of chocolate is a good thing but it is not welcomed by food analysts because it adds to the number of compounds that need to be analysed. The various additives are structurally diverse and there are many published methods for their measurement in chocolate and chocolate-containing products.

For a panel of nine common additives (theobromine, maltol, ethyl maltol, vanillin, vanillic acid, ethyl vanillin, caffeine, (+)-catechin and (-)-epicatechin) HPLC with UV detection is the most widespread published method, although amperometric, electrochemical and mass spectrometric detection have also been employed. The methods come with an assortment of sample preparation methods that include methanolic extraction, defatting and solid-phase extraction.

Despite all of the available methods, none apply to the universal analysis of all nine additives. This failing has been addressed by two chemists from the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, NC, who undertook to develop a simple, inexpensive method that could be easily adopted in many labs. Charles Risner and Melissa Kiser chose HPLC since it has been employed successfully for the target analytes and is a common piece of lab kit.

The team used a C18 column with a gradient of methanol in aqueous acetic acid, which separated all of the analytes within 24 minutes at a flow rate of 500 µL/min. They would have preferred to use water as the mobile phase but it induced rapid phase collapse in the columns, resulting in loss of resolution within about 10 injections.

For a universal method, some compromises have to be made. Hence, UV detection was conducted at 273 nm, not the optimum wavelength for all of the analytes, but one which gave adequate responses for them all. Under these conditions, the detection and quantification limits were 0.03-0.11 and 0.10-0.35 µg/mL for standard solutions of the analytes, with linear measurement ranges up to 20 µg/mL.

The optimised method was tested on a NIST standard reference baking chocolate (SRM 2384) in the first reported single procedure to measure theobromine, catechin, caffeine and epicatechin in this standard without using extensive sample preparation or mass spectrometric detection. The contents agreed well with the certified values and recoveries were 99.6-104.3%.

Next, real chocolate products bought in a local supermarket were tested: dark and milk chocolate, chocolate syrup, chocolate milk, a cocoa mix and a chocolate candy bar. Extraction could not have been simpler. Portions of each product were vortex-mixed with water, the chocolate bars being melted first, and the filtered extracts were analysed.

Maltol and ethyl maltol were not detected but the remaining additives were found in most of the products at varying levels. Peaks attributed to vanillic acid and ethyl vanillic acid were also detected in chocolate milk and chocolate syrup, respectively. They were attributed to the oxidation of vanillin and ethyl vanillin even though the products were stored in a refrigerator as recommended.

The analysis of a set of four proprietary artificial cocoa/chocolate flavours presented some difficulties due to the high contents of some of the flavour enhancers. For instance, vanillin was 300-fold more concentrated than in the consumer products. The large HPLC peaks masked the areas in the chromatograms where catechin and epicatechin would appear. Changes in the concentration of the extract which might have helped only served to cause column overload and introduce sample carryover between injections.

Overall, however, especially for commercial chocolate products as opposed to concentrated flavour enhancers, the universal method proved simple to follow and gave good results. It could be adopted in most food safety and control labs since they generally hold HPLC systems with UV detectors.

TEA FINE PROCESSING CHINA-PART 4

Gambar pertama tu buah limau yang hijau tapi manis...tak sangka aku....yang kedua tu pulak ...ha...haa...pengalaman pertama aku memetik daun teh...untuk teh hijau hanya 3 helai daun yang pertama sahaja dipetik...yang ketiga tu Teh Hijau Jarum Emas...antara teh yang termahal di China...biasanya untuk kerabat diraja jer...Dapat gak aku minum teh untuk raja. Yang ke4 tu bersebelahan dengan makam nenek Mao Zedong. Yang last tu di belakang aku tu rumah Jeneral Mao Zedong...Pengasas komunis di China...
gambar lain menyusur kemudian....Adios....

Postcards from the edge

Message from a craft at the solar system's final frontier holds surprises.

OUTER REACHES An illustration of Voyager 2 at the solar system’s edge. The craft recently sent back surprising data as it approached this edge.JPL/NASAThere are no signs to announce the edge of the solar system, but when the venerable Voyager 2 spacecraft approached this final frontier last Aug. 31 it was in for quite a shock. So were the scientists who analyzed the data that the craft radioed back to Earth, along with related observations by NASA’s twin Earth-orbiting STEREO spacecraft.

The signals reveal that at a distance of 83.7 astronomical units (1 AU is the average Earth-sun separation), Voyager 2 had at least five encounters with a turbulent region known as the termination shock, the researchers report in the July 3 Nature. That’s the place where the solar wind — the sun’s hot supersonic wind of protons and other charged particles, which carves the heliosphere, a bubble in space extending well beyond the orbit of Pluto — slams into cold interstellar space and abruptly slows.

Analyzing the encounter is critical for understanding how the bubble interacts with surrounding space, and how the bubbles carved by other stars affect their surroundings, notes Voyager lead investigator Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Researchers had expected that Voyager 2 would have only one encounter with the shock. The multiple crossings indicate that “the shock is not the steady structure that is predicted by the simplest theory,” says Len Burlaga of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “It is like a wave approaching a beach, that grows, breaks, dissipates, and then re-forms closer to shore.”


ON THE EDGELocation of the two Voyager spacecraft at the fringes of the solar system and the STEREO spacecraft. New data form the Voyager 2 craft and STEREO are providing fresh insight about the structure of the edge of the solar system. L. Wang/UC BerkeleyGusts in the solar wind may cause the shock to “come and go, re-forming itself and decaying,” Stone suggests.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 follows in the footsteps of its sister craft, Voyager 1, which headed toward the fringes of the solar system in the opposite direction, the northern celestial hemisphere, and passed through a single termination shock in 2004. The location of the shock detected by Voyager 2 — some 1.6 billion kilometers closer to the sun than the Voyager 1 shock — suggests that the solar system is lopsided. The bubble carved by the solar wind is pushed in on the southern side.

The dent may be due to extra pressure exerted by the Milky Way galaxy’s magnetic field. The field is generally uniform but could have become “tilted in such a way that it’s pushing more on the south than the north,” says Stone. A series of supernova explosions in the solar neighborhood about 10 million to 20 million years ago could have tilted the field, he notes.

Researchers studying the flow of energy at the solar system’s edge found another surprise. At the termination shock, the solar wind slows and dumps a large amount of energy into space. This energy must then exist in some form, such as heat. But John Richardson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues found that the temperature of protons — a main constituent of the solar wind — in the slowed-down region is five to 10 times cooler than expected.

Using the STEREO spacecraft, Robert Lin and Linghua Wang of the University of California, Berkeley, and their colleagues trace the missing energy to a large group of “pickup protons”—particles that started out as neutral hydrogen atoms from interstellar space and then infiltrated the solar system. The solar wind ionized these atoms, turning them into protons that were then carried back out again by the wind, to the termination shock. About 80 percent of the energy released when the solar wind slows goes into accelerating the pickup protons, the researchers report.

The STEREO findings were a surprise because detectors on the twin craft are designed to detect energetic charged particles coming from the sun, which fluctuate in intensity due to variations in the solar magnetic field that pushes them around. But Wang’s team found that the sensors had detected a group of particles from the termination shock region that didn’t fluctuate in intensity and therefore must be neutral. These particles started out as pick-up protons.

The Berkeley-led team concluded that these particles came from the interstellar medium, providing the first map of particles from just beyond the solar system. This new map is especially important because material at the solar system’s edge is too tenuous and faint to be imaged by a visible-light telescope.

“Over the past few years, the stream of in situ and remote data from the outer reaches of the heliosphere has revolutionized our view of how the sun interacts with the galaxy,” comments J.R. Jokipii of the University of Arizona in Tucson. More is to come, he adds, as the two Voyager craft continue their journeys past the termination shock, to the very edge of the solar system during the coming decade.

LUCU YA..!!! - fikirkanlah...

LUCU YA !!!
Lucu ya, duit RM50 kelihatan begitu besar bila dibawa ke kotak derma masjid, tapi begitu kecil bila kita bawa ke supermarket.
Lucu ya, 45 minit terasa terlalu lama untuk berzikir tapi betapa pendeknya waktu itu untuk pertandingan bolasepak.
Lucu ya, betapa lamanya 2 jam berada di Masjid, tapi betapa cepatnya 2 jam berlalu saat menonton t.v. dan wayang di pawagam.
Lucu ya, susah sungguh merangkai kata untuk dipanjatkan saat berdoa atau sholat, tapi bertapa mudahnya cari bahan bersembang bila bertemu kawan-kawan / pakwe / makwe.
Lucu ya, betapa seruan dan teriakan yang perpanjangan waktu pertandingan pasukan bola jadi kegemaran kita, tapi betapa bosannya bila imam sholat Tarawih bulan Ramadhan bacaannya lama dan panjang.
Lucu ya, susah sangat baca Al-Quran 1 juz saja, tapi majalah hiburan dan novel best-seller 100 halamanpun habis dilahap.
Lucu ya, orang-orang berebut paling depan untuk menonton bola atau konsert, dan berebut cari saf paling belakang bila sembahyang Jumaat supaya boleh cepat keluar.
Lucu ya, kita perlu undangan seawal 3-4 minggu sebelumnya untuk majlis ilmuan supaya boleh dimasukkan di agenda kita, tapi untuk acara lain seperti menonton wayang, annual dinner atau high tea jadual kita boleh diubah sekelip mata.
Lucu ya, susahnya orang mengajak menyebarkan dakwah, tapi mudahnya orang menyertai dan menyebar gossip.
Lucu ya, kita begitu percaya pada yang dikatakan oleh orang sebagai e-mail layang di internet, tapi kita sering menolak, mempermudah serta mempersoalkan apa yang terkandung di dalam Al-Quran.
Lucu ya, semua orang inginkan masuk syurga tanpa harus beriman,berfikir, berbicara ataupun melakukan apa-apa.
Lucu ya, kita boleh mengirimkan ribuan jokes dan surat berantai melalui email, tapi bila mengirim yang berkaitan dengan ibadah seringkali berfikir dua-tiga-kali.
JANGANLAH BIARKAN DIRI KITA INI MENJADI SEBAHAGIAN DARI KELUCUAN TERSEBUT.

"Hai orang-orang yang beriman, ingatlah akan Allah dengan ingatan yang sebanyak-banyaknya (perbanyakkan mengingati Allah)" (Surah Al-Ahzab - ayat 41)
"Dan sampaikanlah berita gembira kepada orang-orang mumin bahwa sesungguhnya bagi mereka kurnia yang besar dari Allah. Janganlah engkau ikut orang-orang kafir dan orang-orang munafiq, dan biarkanlah mereka menyakiti engkau, dan tawakallah (menyerahlah) kepada Allah. Cukuplah Allah sebagai wakil (tempat menyerahkan urusan)." (Surah Al-Ahzab - ayat 47 - 48 )

p.s:terjumpa masa surfing tadi....moga memberi kesedaran.....Amin....

E learning portal...

Alhambdulillah, after waiting for some time....finally i can access/login to e-learning portal....that's mean the time has come...no more playing around...i must start study...honeymoon time is over...ha..ha..ha...but tonight i still need to go for bowling practice.....fuh!!!!......still need to arrange my time.......ya Allah...mohon permudahkanlah hambamu ini dan rakan-rakan seperjuangan dalam mengharungi cabaran sebagai seorang pelajar...amin...