Integrating vocational training in culinary arts and Islamic studies at juvenile rehabilitation centres: Malaysian experience

The Juvenile Rehabilitation Centres (JRC) in Malaysia aims to provide shelter, counselling and skills training to juveniles specifically for those who wish to transform themselves from the regrettable misdeeds they have committed. At JRCs, an integrated Culinary Vocational Training and Islamic education forms part of their training curriculum. The skills acquired should enable trainees to secure jobs upon completion of training. However, there are some training institutions that lack systematic training structures resulting in trainees becoming less skilful in both vocational and Islamic education. The objective of this research is to identify the effectiveness of an integrated Culinary and Islamic Education curriculum implemented at JRCs in Malaysia. This is a descriptive survey and data was obtained using questionnaire and interview. Respondents comprised 92 trainees, four managers, four culinary trainers and four Islamic education teachers, all from four different JRCs. The findings show that the trainees are happy with their trainings that brought about positive effects for them. Some suggestions have been made to provide improvements in the implementation of the course among them the inclusion of prayers in the Islamic education syllabus

Strengthening of Self-Consolidating High Strength RC Dapped Ends with CFRP Fabrics

In this work, an experimental study has been conducted to investigate the behavior of self-consolidating high strength reinforced concrete dapped end beams upgraded with CFRP composites. A series of 14-specimens have been tested, each of with length of  1500 mm, total depth of 400mm and width of 200mm. Two values of shear slenderness ratio (a/d) namely (1.5 and 1.0) are adopted. Two specimens have been considered as a reference beams (with full Design reinforcement), four were deficiently reinforced in either hanger or the extended disturbed zone, and the other eight beams have been upgraded with a variety of arrangements by CFRP fabric. This work aims to observe the effects of deficiently reinforced disturbed zones on the resistance and overall behavior of such elements. Also, the extent of strength recovery using CFRP sheeting. It is observed that reducing the hanger reinforcements by a half, results in a drop of capacity by (13%) regardless of values of (a/d). Furthermore, it is noticed that adopting the inclined arrangement of CFRP sheets with (450) yielded the best results if compared with other arrangements. An enhancement in failure load was about (23%) for (a/d=1.0)

Predicting Intermediate Storage Performance for Workflow Applications

Configuring a storage system to better serve an application is a challenging task complicated by a multidimensional, discrete configuration space and the high cost of space exploration (e.g., by running the application with different storage configurations). To enable selecting the best configuration in a reasonable time, we design an end-to-end performance prediction mechanism that estimates the turn-around time of an application using storage system under a given configuration. This approach focuses on a generic object-based storage system design, supports exploring the impact of optimizations targeting workflow applications (e.g., various data placement schemes) in addition to other, more traditional, configuration knobs (e.g., stripe size or replication level), and models the system operation at data-chunk and control message level. This paper presents our experience to date with designing and using this prediction mechanism. We evaluate this mechanism using micro- as well as synthetic benchmarks mimicking real workflow applications, and a real application.. A preliminary evaluation shows that we are on a good track to meet our objectives: it can scale to model a workflow application run on an entire cluster while offering an over 200x speedup factor (normalized by resource) compared to running the actual application, and can achieve, in the limited number of scenarios we study, a prediction accuracy that enables identifying the best storage system configuration

Transition from Mott insulator to superconductor in GaNb4_{4}Se8_{8} and GaTa4_{4}Se8_{8} under high pressure

Electronic conduction in GaM$_{4}$Se$_{8}$ (M=Nb;Ta) compounds with the fcc GaMo$_{4}$S$_{8}$-type structure originates from hopping of localized unpaired electrons (S=1/2) among widely separated tetrahedral M$_{4}$ metal clusters. We show that under pressure these systems transform from Mott insulators to a metallic and superconducting state with T$_{C}$=2.9 and 5.8K at 13 and 11.5GPa for GaNb$_{4}$Se$_{8}$ and GaTa$_{4}$Se$_{8}$, respectively. The occurrence of superconductivity is shown to be connected with a pressure-induced decrease of the MSe$_{6}$ octahedral distortion and simultaneous softening of the phonon associated with MSe-bonds.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

An Indirect Impact of the Price to Book Value to the Stock Returns: an Empirical Evidence From the Property Companies in Indonesia

This research empirically examines the influence of Dividend Payout Ratio (DPR), Return on Equity (ROE), Growth, and Degree of Financial Leverage (DFL) on the Price to Book Value (PBV) of the property companies in Indonesia. It also attempts to explore the indirect effects of the DPR, ROE, Growth, and DFL on the stock returns via the PBV. 36 property firms, which are listed in the Indonesian Stock Exchange from 2007 to 2013, were selected to be analyzed using the Path Analysis. The result of this research indicates that the variable of growth is found to have a significant impact on PBV. Meanwhile, the DPR, ROE, and DFL were found to be insignificant. The DPR, ROE, Growth, and DFL were found to affect PBV simultaneously. This study also proved that the PBV has a significant effect on the stock returns, while the DPR and DFL were not. The study also found that the DPR, PBV, and DFL have simultaneously affected stock returns of the property companies in Indonesia. The finding of this study implied that to predict the stock returns of the property companies, the investors and companies should take into account the changes in the growth and PBV

Valence and magnetic instabilities in Sm compounds at high pressures

We report on the study of the response to high pressures of the electronic and magnetic properties of several Sm-based compounds, which span at ambient pressure the whole range of stable charge states between the divalent and the trivalent. Our nuclear forward scattering of synchrotron radiation and specific heat investigations show that in both golden SmS and SmB6 the pressure-induced insulator to metal transitions (at 2 and about 4-7 GPa, respectively) are associated with the onset of long-range magnetic order, stable up to at least 19 and 26 GPa, respectively. This long-range magnetic order, which is characteristic of Sm(3+), appears already for a Sm valence near 2.7. Contrary to these compounds, metallic Sm, which is trivalent at ambient pressure, undergoes a series of pressure-induced structural phase transitions which are associated with a progressive decrease of the ordered 4f moment.Comment: 15 pages (including 7 figures) submitted to J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Integrating vocational training in culinary arts and Islamic studies at juvenile rehabilitation centres: Malaysian experience

The Juvenile Rehabilitation Centres (JRC) in Malaysia aims to provide shelter, counselling and skills training to juveniles specifically for those who wish to transform themselves from the regrettable misdeeds they have committed. At JRCs, an integrated Culinary Vocational Training and Islamic education forms part of their training curriculum. The skills acquired should enable trainees to secure jobs upon completion of training. However, there are some training institutions that lack systematic training structures resulting in trainees becoming less skilful in both vocational and Islamic education. The objective of this research is to identify the effectiveness of an integrated Culinary and Islamic Education curriculum implemented at JRCs in Malaysia. This is a descriptive survey and data was obtained using questionnaire and interview. Respondents comprised 92 trainees, four managers, four culinary trainers and four Islamic education teachers, all from four different JRCs. The findings show that the trainees are happy with their trainings that brought about positive effects for them. Some suggestions have been made to provide improvements in the implementation of the course among them the inclusion of prayers in the Islamic education syllabus

Hyperon Nonleptonic Decays in Chiral Perturbation Theory Reexamined

We recalculate the leading nonanalytic contributions to the amplitudes for hyperon nonleptonic decays in chiral perturbation theory. Our results partially disagree with those calculated before, and include new terms previously omitted in the P-wave amplitudes. Although these modifications are numerically significant, they do not change the well-known fact that good agreement with experiment cannot be simultaneously achieved using one-loop S- and P-wave amplitudes.Comment: 14 pages, latex, 3 figures, uses axodraw.sty, minor additions, to appear in Phys. Rev.

The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy and Deficit Budget Financing : Evidence From Selected Muslim Countries

The sustainability of fiscal policy and how to finance the deficit budget has been receiving increasing attention from economists. The issue is paramount for the Muslim Countries and this is one of the motivations of the paper. In order to assess the sustainability of budget deficits in selected Muslim countries, a descriptive statistics for the stock of revenue, expenditure, tax over GDP and sustainability tests of government debt and deficit are performed for the Muslim countries for the 1971-2000 period. The cointegration model is also used to test the relationship between government expenditures, taxes, and seigniorage. The results show that the Muslim countries use taxes and seigniorage to finance their government expenditures. The empirical results also allow us to conclude that fiscal policy may be sustainable for most Muslim countries. JEL classification: E60; H62; H63