IRB

In Year 2024, Malaysia Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) had begun rolling out its e-Invoice system starting from August 1, 2024 for taxpayers with annual turnover or revenue more than 100 millions. LHDN is estimating that by year 2025, all taxpayers shall implement e-Invoice regardless of sizes and income amount. While small businesses registered sole proprietorship are not required to participate before 1 July 2025, some of us, especially independent content artists and social media influencers registered as one, are still required to do so in order to be validated, recognized, and claimable via LHDN taxation filing (pull-in effect). Otherwise, the small business will be essentially locked out from making any corporation deals for both supply chain and customers ends.

However, for sole proprietorship, there is not enough information and emphasis on how to perform one aside from the general guidance compared to public and private corporations. After the author, a sole proprietor who personally explored and successfully experienced a filing as a seller, it’s safe to share the knowledge to the similar fate.

This paper shares the experience utilizing LHDN e-Invoice as a sole proprietor mainly for enabling and validating counterparts’ invoices (supplier and customers). As the paper was written in August 2024 where LHDN is still beta-testing the system with both private and public corporations, the content of the paper can be outdated as time flows per LHDN pursue of continuous improvements. **To avoid conflict of interest and misinformation, reader MUST AND SHALL always refer to LHDN provided guidelines to perform e-invoicing. The author SHALL NOT be held liable for any consequences in any means, any circumstances, any shape, or any forms for the reader**.

This study entailed conducting extensive qualitative interviews of mothers who had been invited to have their infants participate in the Kilimanjaro Intermittent Preventive Treatment of Malaria in Infants (Kili IPTi) trial, designed to assess the efficacy of intermittent preventive malaria chemoprophylaxis for infants. Our study sought to explore whether there was a relationship between the mothers' understanding of the research and the decision to enroll their infants or to decline. Such empirical data is necessary to address widely voiced concerns that limited understanding of research or exploitive inducement may undermine informed consent among clinical trial recruits in developing countries. The most striking result of the study was that, in general, those who declined to have their children participate in the trial had a better understanding of the trial than those who agreed to have their children participate. Decliners were more likely to understand the experimental natu...

Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) has been associated with microcephaly and other central nervous system abnormalities including areas that have been implicated in the control of the lower urinary tract. As such, this descriptive case series has aimed to investigate whether CZS is linked with neurogenic bladder. Identifying such an association is paramount in the effort to recognize CZS complications that have putative treatment options that could mitigate the impact of CZS in infected children. Following IRB approval, urological assessment was performed in all patients referred to our clinic between June 2016 and May 2017 who presented with confirmed CZS-associated microcephaly. The research protocol consisted of obtaining clinical history, laboratory tests, lower and upper urinary tract ultrasounds, as well as a diagnostic urodynamic evaluation. ZIKA virus infection was previously confirmed by maternal history and positive PCR in babies and mothers. Microcephaly and other central ner...

Clinical trials (CTs) are the "gold standard" to ensure the development of new effective treatments in medicine. A study was conducted to assess knowledge of, and attitudes toward, clinical trials among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), along with factors that motivate them to participate. A 50-item questionnaire on the views of patients with PD about CTs was developed. It included statements that the respondents assessed on a Likert scale from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree"). The questionnaire was mailed to a random sample (n = 2000) of members of the patient organization the Finnish Parkinson Association. In all, 708 response forms were returned, of which 681 were accepted after exclusion (a 34% response rate). In general, attitudes of patients with PD toward CTs were positive. Older subjects and patients with lower education levels had inadequate knowledge of general issues related to CTs. Older age, low level of education, ...

Background The capacity of the Research Ethic Committee (REC) members to review research protocol is one of the frequently raised problems. The purpose of this study was to assess training needs of members of research ethics committee in Cameroon regarding research participant protection.Methods It was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in all the regions of Cameroon during the last quarter of the year 2020, assessing training needs of REC members’ ethical evaluation of health research protocols. Data were collected from all eligible REC members by trained and supervised surveyors using a well designed questionnaire integrated in smartphones via ODK-collect. The data were analyzed by estimating proportions with 95% Confidence Interval using the EpiInfo software version 7.2.2.6.Findings Out of the 79 ethics committee members reached, 64 (81.01%) accepted to participate including 28 (43.75) female. The result showed that,21 (32.81%) of ethics committee members were not trai...

The growth of microcredit worldwide along with international rules on capital requirements (Basel II) are increasing the competition between microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks for this business segment. The bank system traditionally has relied on adequate credit scoring models to analyze the risk of payment failures, but this has not been the case in supervised MFIs. The objective of this research is to design a credit scoring model for any institution subjected to supervision and specialized in microcredit as the Development Agency for Small and Micro Enterprise (Entidad de Desarrollo de la Pequeña y Micro Empresa - Edpyme) of the financial system in Peru. The results of this research includes a methodology and the steps needed to design the model, and the assessment and validation process that can be applied in the business area, in particular, to establish an interest rate policy with customers. Eventually, the paper also explains how the model can be used to develop cred...

Background Biobanking biospecimens and consent are common practice in paediatric research. We need to explore children and young people’s (CYP) knowledge and perspectives around the use of and consent to biobanking. This will ensure meaningful informed consent can be obtained and improve current consent procedures. Methods We designed a survey, in co-production with CYP, collecting demographic data, views on biobanking, and consent using three scenarios: 1) prospective consent, 2) deferred consent, and 3) reconsent and assent at age of capacity. The survey was disseminated via the Young Person’s Advisory Group North England (YPAGne) and participating CYP’s secondary schools. Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach by three independent reviewers (including CYP) to identify common themes. Data triangulation occurred independently by a fourth reviewer. Results 102 CYP completed the survey. Most were between 16-18 years (63.7%, N=65) and female (66.7%, N=68). 72.3% had ...

Because children are presumed to have insufficient cognitive ability to consent to participate in research, pediatric research raises particular ethical and legal issues. For children who have not reached the age of consent stipulated by law or policy, parents (or legal guardians) must authorize their participation. This paper explores the issue of whether, to satisfy the ethical and legal norms of consent for research, participants in pediatric studies who attain the age of majority after their parents or guardians enrolled them in a study should be “recontacted” to obtain their consent to remain in the study. Using three different contexts (longitudinal studies, clinical trials, and newborn screening), we argue that distinctions should be made between the risks and benefits involved in recontacting for consent before determining the potential duties of researchers. An obligation to recontact should always be balanced with the feasibility and cost of such efforts in each particular...

This article provides pragmatic advice for organizations interested in creating a research ethics consultation service (RECS). A robust RECS has the potential to build capacity among investigators to identify and consider the ethical issues they encounter while conducting their research. Determining whether to establish an RECS should begin with an institutional‐needs assessment that includes three key questions: What are the current resources available to research teams to navigate ethical concerns that arise from their research? Is there a demand or perceived need for more resources? Is there institutional support (financial and otherwise) to establish and maintain an RECS? If this results in the decision to establish the consultation service, relevant institutional stakeholders must be identified and consulted, and personnel with the requisite skills recruited. The next step is to establish an RECS and build the infrastructure to process and respond to requests. The RECS's lo...

The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an independent assessment of research proposals. This additional level of scrutiny is meant to provide an additional level of protection for human subjects. However, oversight of human subject research, as currently carried out in the bureaucratic, rule‐based, clinically‐biased American system, is too cumbersome with regard to online research. In addition, it is not conducive to the training of ethical Internet researchers. Internet research differs from traditional human subject research in many ways, and the oversight rules governing traditional research do not easily relate to the complexities of conducting research online. Online researchers do not oppose the foundational principles of non‐maleficence (avoiding harm) and autonomy, nor do they reject the ideals of informed consent and confidentiality, neve...

Experience has shown that the application of ethical guidelines developed for research in developed countries to research in developing countries can be, and often is, impractical and raises a number of contentious issues. Various attempts have been made to provide guidelines more appropriate to the developing world context; however, to date these efforts have been dominated by the fields of bioscience, medical research and nutrition. There is very little advice available for those seeking to undertake collaborative social science or natural science research in developing countries and what is there tends to be held within disparate sources. Charting the development of a set of ethics documentation for future use by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme research community, this paper outlines past and present attitudes towards ethics procedures amongst this community and suggests ways in which ethics procedures might be made more relevant and user-friendly ...

INDIGENOUS IRON AND MANGANESE OXDIZING BACTERIA Author(s) Sugahara, M; Fujikawa, Y; Hamasaki, T; Minami, A; Yoneda, D; Tonokai, K; Tani, S; Nishida, K Citation Annual Report of FY 2007, The Core University Program between Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology (VAST). P.403-P.407 Issue Date 2008 Text Version publisher URL http://hdl.handle.net/11094/13060 DOI rights

Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) has been associated with microcephaly and other central nervous system abnormalities including areas that have been implicated in the control of the lower urinary tract. As such, this descriptive case series has aimed to investigate whether CZS is linked with neurogenic bladder. Identifying such an association is paramount in the effort to recognize CZS complications that have putative treatment options that could mitigate the impact of CZS in infected children. Following IRB approval, urological assessment was performed in all patients referred to our clinic between June 2016 and May 2017 who presented with confirmed CZS-associated microcephaly. The research protocol consisted of obtaining clinical history, laboratory tests, lower and upper urinary tract ultrasounds, as well as a diagnostic urodynamic evaluation. ZIKA virus infection was previously confirmed by maternal history and positive PCR in babies and mothers. Microcephaly and other central ner...