MONDAY, 20 AUGUST -  414 students forming 138 teams from 34 secondary schools in Sabah and 4 from Labuan gathered at Universiti Malaysia Sabah on Saturday to compete in the Young Innovators Challenge Program, a concerted effort between the University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Digital Maker Hub and Centre for Industry and Community Network, the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Hap Seng Group, Yayasan Sime Darby, the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation, and Chumbaka, a pertinent training provider in technology industries. 

This competition is the largest state level competition in Malaysia and the winners will be sent on to the national level competition.

The competition, which was previously known as the Young Innovate Competition, was held for the third time in Sabah. 

In 2016, the top 3 teams that won the competition went on to the National competition, where SM St Michael emerged as the national champions with their egg incubator invention “Chick It Out”. 

As part of their championship award, they won a trip to the Singapore Maker Fair. 

In 2017, the state level winning team from SMK Tun Fuad Stephen Kiulu went on to win the Gold Medal in the MDEC Innovation. 

This year there were 8 Gold Award winners, 8 Silver Award winners, and 16 Bronze Award Winners. 

The Gold Award winners were from SMK Tambunan, SMK Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu, SMK Bingkor, SMJK Chung Hwa, Tenom, Sabah Tshung Tsin Secondary School, SMK Kemabong Tenom, SMK Rancha-Rancha, Labuan, SM St Michael, Penampang, Sabah. 

15 teams nationwide will be selected for the YIC nationals in September. The Gold Award winners will stand a chance to be shortlisted to represent Sabah in this national event.

This Young Innovators Challenge competition encourages high school students to use an embedded system such as Arduino, to solve a community problem. 

These students were mentored by UMS students or teachers trained by the Hap Seng Group.  During the competition, the students come up with many conceptual ideas and produced numerous prototype projects. 

They also develop programming, design, and engineering skills.  This competition falls under the Digital Maker Hub @ UMS Sabah, which is responsible for running programs on computational thinking and programming for teachers and students. 

The objectives of this program are to inspire passion in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), to develop living skills such as problem solving, design thinking, persistence, and collaboration, to inspire life-long learning through the use of open-source materials.

The key funding raised by the UMS students and organisers for the Arduino kits as well as the competition were raised through generous contributions of the community donors, the Hap Seng Group, Chumbaka, the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation, and the Centre for Industry and Community Network, Universiti Malaysia Sabah.

ISNIN, 20 OGOS - Seramai 196 pelajar tingkatan 6 terlibat pada Program Selangkah ke Menara Gading (SEMEGA) 2018 yang diadakan di Dewan Kuliah Pusat ke-2, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) baru-baru ini.

Sebanyak 20 sekolah terlibat dari 15 daerah iaitu Kota Kinabalu, Beaufort, Keningau, Kinabatangan, Kota Belud, Kota Marudu, Kuala Penyu, Kudat, Kunak, Membakut, Papar, Penampang, Ranau, Menumbuk dan Beluran.

Timbalan Naib Canselor Hal Ehwal Pelajar dan Alumni (HEPA), Prof. Dr. Ismail Ali berkata, program yang dijalankan itu merupakan satu kejayaan kepada pihak penganjur apabila program tersebut berhasil memberi pengetahuan kepada peserta berkaitan suasana universiti.

“Ini secara tidak langsung dapat memupuk kecemerlangan pelajar sekolah dari aspek akademik, sahsiah dan disiplin.

“Justeru, tahniah dan terima kasih diucapkan kepada semua ahli jawatankuasa yang bertungkus lumus dalam menjayakan program ini dan diharap agar program sebegini akan terus dianjurkan pada masa akan datang,” katanya dalam teks ucapan yang dibacakan oleh wakil beliau, Ketua Jabatan Hal Ehwal Pelajar dan Alumni (HEPA) UMS, Ahmadi Nordin.

Terdahulu, Pengarah Program SEMEGA 2018, Suzanne Chee Suxian berkata, program itu bertujuan membantu dan mendidik semangat kerjasama antara pelajar melalui aktiviti yang dijalankan yang dilihat mampu memberi impak besar dan berguna kepada para pelajar untuk memperkasa motivasi dalam diri untuk menyambung pengajian ke peringkat yang lebih tinggi.

“Semoga program ini akan menjadi medium yang berterusan khasnya untuk merapatkan lagi hubungan silaturahim antara UMS dan pihak sekolah dalam menjalankan lebih banyak kerjasama pada masa akan datang,” ujar beliau.

Hadir sama Penolong Pegawai Tadbir Kanan, Pusat Kerjaya HEPA, Ag. Nasip Yonos. 

FRIDAY, 17 AUGUST - Prof. Dr Chua Tock Hing and his research team of Department of Pathobiology and Medical Diagnostics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia will publish in the next issue of PlosOne, a paper entitled, ”Mitochondrial variation in subpopulations of Anopheles balabacensis Baisas in Sabah, Malaysia (Diptera: Culicidae)”.

The coauthors are Benny Manin (Ph.D student at UMS) and Prof. Chris Drakeley (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).

This paper is based on the research done for the past five years on the primary vector (Anopheles balabacensis) of the monkey malaria (caused by Plasmodium knowlesi), in Sabah which has recorded the highest incidence of monkey malaria in the world with most of the cases occurring in the interior areas.

A survey conducted in Kudat and Kota Marudu districts also showed that 9.8% of the collected blood samples were positive for Plasmodium knowlesi with most of the infected individuals not having a history of fever.

There are strong linkages between landscape change, disease ecology and human health which help to explain the emergence of the monkey malaria.

These anthropogenic changes to the landscape in Sabah are influencing the dynamics between mosquito vectors, macaques, and humans.

Other results also suggest that Plasmodium knowlesi is adapting to the changes in the distribution and vectorial capacity of its vectors in Malaysian Borneo.

This mosquito feeds on both macaque monkeys as well as humans, preferring to bite humans outdoors and during the early evening.

It is the dominant Anopheles species found in Kudat Division where it is responsible for all the cases of Plasmodium knowlesi.

However, there is limited basic biological and ecological information on this vector.

Prof Chua and his team sequenced 71 Anopheles balabacensis individuals collected from 14 sites of seven districts in Sabah, constituting 14 subpopulations.

The cox1, cox2 genes of the mitochondria were sequenced and analysed to investigate the genetic relationship between the specimens from the various sites.

A total of 17 and 10 haplotypes (a haplotype is a group of genes within an organism that is inherited together from a single parent) were detected in the subpopulations using the cox1, cox2 sequences respectively.

Some of the haplotypes were common among the subpopulations resulting from high gene flow occurring between them, and the variation detected between subpopulations was not due to the geographical distance between them.

Further analysis showed that Anopheles balabacensis in Sabah is experiencing population expansion and growth.

More importantly the high gene flow between populations could help to spread insecticide resistance which may hamper vector control effort.

KHAMIS, 16 OGOS - Seramai 25 pelajar Wuyi University China kini mengikuti kursus profesional "Artificial Intelligence (Fuzzy Logic) Optimization Engineering" di Universiti Malaysia Sabah.

Kursus kejuruteraan selama 16 hari itu dikendalikan oleh Fakulti Kejuruteraan (FKJ) UMS.

Menurut Timbalan Dekan (Akademik dan Antarabangsa) FKJ, Ismail Saad, adalah menjadi suatu kebanggaan untuk menganjurkan kursus yang disertai oleh pelajar dari luar negara.

“Ia merupakan hasil hubungan baik kerjasama yang telah terjalin antara UMS dan Wuyi University sekali gus menjadi medan perkongsian ilmu untuk manfaat kedua-dua universiti.

“Kita mengharapkan agar lebih banyak program-program seperti ini pada masa-masa akan datang termasuk kerjasama dalam bidang penyelidikan dan pengajian peringkat pascasiswazah,” katanya.

Ismail berucap berkata demikian dalam satu majlis di FKJ bagi mengalu-alukan kehadiran kesemua pelajar universiti berkenaan.

Kursus yang diadakan sehingga 24 Ogos itu turut memberi ruang kepada para pelajar Wuyi University untuk mengenali negeri Sabah dengan lebih dekat melalui beberapa lawatan ke destinasi menarik yang terdapat di negeri ini.

Hadir sama pada program itu Pengarah Pusat Pengantarabangsaan dan Penglibatan Global UMS, Prof. Dr. Ho Chong Mun.