BackgroundsThe study aimed to survey for FD in a primary care setting in a population known to have an extremely low prevalence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection, with the hypothesis that in such a population, dyspepsia should have been relatively less common.MethodsThe Rome III FD Diagnostic Questionnaire was translated into the Malay language and later tested for reliability. A prospective cross-sectional survey was then performed involving 160 Malay patients attending primary care clinic after informed consent. Patients positive for symptoms of FD were subjected to upper endoscopy and exclusion of H. pylori infection. Univariable and multivariable analyses were used to test for associated risk factors.ResultsThe back-translated questionnaire was similar to the original English version and was reliable (Cronbach Alpha-coefficient 0.85). Of the 160 surveyed subjects, 19 of them (11.9%) had symptoms of FD. With exclusion of erosive diseases (3/160 or 1.9%) from endoscopy, 16 subjects or 10% had FD. None of the 19 subjects were positive for H. pylori infection. Epigastric pain syndrome was present in 11/16 (68.8%) and the rest, overlap with postprandial distress syndrome. With multivariable analysis, a married status (OR = 8.1; 95% CI 1.0-36.5) and positive psychosocial alarm symptoms (OR = 3.8; 95% CI 1.0-14.0) were associated with FD. Of those married subjects, females were more likely to have FD and psychosocial symptoms than men (6.3% vs. 1.9%), P = 0.04.ConclusionsFD was more common than one had expected among Malays attending primary care clinic in an area with low prevalence of H. pylori.

This paper reviews the multi-agent modelling (MAM) which applied as a platform to simulate the interaction of crowd dynamics. The research and development of MAM related to crowd dynamics can generate specific analytical evaluation, improve the safety level of the pedestrians and the quality operation of the urban space. Furthermore, crowd dynamics have become a major concern for urban space and are mainly constrained imposed by the ever-increasing populations. Consequently, these scenarios causing more attention are paid to the crowd safety in capacity assessment, especially during an emergency evacuation. This paper presents a concise review on the development of MAM over the past few years. The discussion on the state of the art of the multi-agent methods includes the history of the multi-agent method and the development of multi-agent modelling. This paper also discussed the state of the art of multi-agent methods in modelling crowd dynamic by focusing only on the microscopic approach. The advantages of multi-agent modelling approach have become one of the best methodological approaches in analysing and predicting crowd performance in the real world as a substitute for physical experimentation in a current research field.