Proportionality assessment of rice mills distribution against paddy production in Bangladesh: a GIS spatial analysis

Bangladesh is a populous country whose people mostly depend on rice for their food intake. Paddy is cultivated all over the country and different types of rice mills are established for processing paddy into rice. GIS is a useful tool for data analysis, visualization in maps and selecting sites for various purposes. This study analysed the spatial distribution of paddy production and location of rice mills in Bangladesh, and took a closer look at the proportionality of rice mill distribution against paddy production in the country’s different regions. The distributions were shown simply in maps and also with auto-correlation like Moran's I or cluster & outlier analysis and hotspot analysis in both district wise and division wise. The findings revealed that paddy production density was concentrated in the northern areas, especially in north-western areas of the country. Rice mills were also established densely in those areas but the milling capacity against paddy production was much more in those areas. In southern areas there were very few number of rice mills although significant amount of paddy was produced there. Rice mills had not established in the whole country rationally with the paddy production volume

HOTSPOT ANALYSIS OF HAND FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE (HFMD) USING GIS IN KUCHING, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA

Purpose of the study: The main objective of this study was to identify the hotspot area of HFMD reported cases within two local councils, namely, Kuching North City Council and Kuching South City Council, by using Geographic Information System (GIS) technique. Methodology: Two methods, namely, Getis-Ord GI* and Thiessen polygon, were used in this study. Getis-Ord GI* statistics was used to identify the hotspot areas and Thiessen polygon method was used to create an influencing boundary for each village. The analysis was conducted from 2014 to 2018 on the basis of the cases reported and registered with Sarawak Health Department by using ArcGIS Software. Main Findings: The hotspot areas were confined to the Western area of Kuching North City Council, which is located at Rampangi Fasa II and Semariang Pinggir villages. Subsequently, in Kuching South City Council, there were two villages were identified as hotspot areas at Kampung Stampin and Kampung Stutong Baru. Applications of this study: The findings from this study will help local authorities, public health officers, epidemiologists, and the public to identify the hotspot areas of HFMD occurrences and therefore, the information obtained in this study will be of a great help to them in coming up with the necessary mitigation plan to control this disease before it spreads to other locations. Novelty/Originality of this study: Previous studies conducted in Sarawak on HFMD were based on divisional boundaries, which were too broad to be used as a guide for mitigation planning. Therefore, the outcome from this study, which was based on the village boundary, provides more information on the hotspot areas of HFMD at a micro level

Cultural Heritage Tourism in Malaysia: Issues and Challenges

Malaysia is experiencing an incredible pace of tourism development and heritage tourism is one of the tourism branches that have long contributed to appeal the tourist destination and acts as important marketing tool to attract tourist especially with special interests in heritage and arts. Cultural heritage tourism has emerged as a potential form of alternative tourism among both international tourists as well as Malaysian domestic travelers. The difference of ethnics present in Malaysia brought different local knowledge discipline ranging from its architecture, handicrafts, traditional attire, music and dance, which reflects a colorful heritage and an amalgamated culture. There are arise of conflict in management of cultural heritage tourism in Malaysia face by tourism managers, stakeholders, governments, cultural heritage managers and local community itself. In order to maintain, conserve and preserve the resources and assets of cultural heritage in Malaysia, a system or management need to be develop that take into consideration on every issues and challenge, so that the decision making process is reliable to optimize the value of cultural heritage tourism industry in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview and discuss the status, issues and challenge of cultural heritage tourism in Malaysia

Geographic Information System for Crime Mapping: A Case Study of Property Crime in Kuching, Sarawak

Residents in Kuching claim to be worried about the increasingly of property crime. In Sarawak property crime was reported more frequent occur and contribute 88% cases compared with violent crime 11.2%. The aim of the study is to identify the spatial pattern of property crime in Kuching, Sarawak. This study using spatial data such as road data, police station boundary and police sector boundary that obtained from police station heads in the form of pictures and street names. Digitization was conducted based on road data to facilitate accurate dividing of police sector boundaries. Non-spatial data including property crime cases (2015-2017), month, time, types and incident address which is taken directly from the Police Reporting System. The crime data in PRS does not contain any coordinate reference system (x, y) and GIS help to locate the coordinate through the address of the incidents. Global Moran’s I tool help to identify the overall pattern and trend of property crime in Kuching, Sarawak. This study has shown that the spatial pattern of property crime in Kuching, Sarawak in 2015-2017 was random because of p value greater than 1.0 and Moran’s Index approaching zero. However, the result of stolen cases showed a positive spatial autocorrelation p-value of 0.063805 (p<0.10) indicating a case was clustered with 90% of confidence level in 2015. The result of stolen cases showed p-value 0.000371 (p<0.01) which indicate cluster at 90% of confindece level. The stolen cases in Kuching showed a strong positive spatial autocorrelation in 2017 because z-score of 2.830712 greater than 2.58 with the p-value of 0.004644 (p<0.01). Thus, the stolen cases do not occur at random in 2015-2017. This study can help police and authorities in making decision for preventing property crime

Analisis trend dan pola keruangan kemalangan maut jalan raya di Malaysia : kajian kes di Daerah Timur Laut, Pulau Pinang

Kecederaan akibat daripada kemalangan jalan raya merupakan antara pembunuh utama di dunia selepas penyakit kronik seperti penyakit jantung, strok, jangkitan paru-paru dan kesukaran pernafasan. Di Malaysia, jumlah kematian akibat kemalangan jalan raya telah meningkat sebanyak 70% .Kajian ini menganalisis kemalangan maut bagi semua jenis kenderaan di Daerah Timur Laut, Pulau Pinang berdasarkan data kemalangan maut bagi tempoh tiga tahun 2011-2013. Ia juga menganalisis trend serta taburan dan corak keruangan kemalangan maut dengan bantuan perisian Sistem Maklumat Geografi (GIS). Data dianalisis dengan menggunakan kaedah purata kejiranan terdekat (ANN). Hasil kajian mendapati kadar kemalangan maut di daerah Timur Laut bagi tahun 2011, 2012 dan 2013 adalah tinggi (masing-masing 90, 88 dan 91 kes). Trend menunjukkan bahawa kadar kemalangan maut yang paling tinggi berlaku dalam kawasan sempadan Balai Polis Jelutong manakala yang paling rendah adalah dalam kawasan sempadan Balai Polis Komuniti Taman Desa Permai. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan bahawa taburan kemalangan maut adalah paling tinggi di jalan-jalan utama, iaitu Jalan Air Hitam, Lebuhraya Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu dan Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah. Hasil analisis ANN pula menunjukkan bahawa corak kemalangan maut bagi tahun 2011, 2012 dan 2013 adalah secara berkelompok dengan penolakan hipotesis null. Kesimpulannya, kemalangan jalan raya lebih tertumpu dan berkelompok di sesuatu kawasan tertentu disebabkan oleh perbezaan dari segi struktur fizikal jalan raya, jumlah trafik dan kepentingan jalan tersebut kepada pengguna di kawasan sekitarnya

Warisan tembikar labu sayong di Kuala Kangsar, Perak: Sejarah, perkembangan dan masa depan

This study examines the history and development of pottery making of ‘Labu Sayong’ in Kuala Kangsar, Perak. Pottery making activities in Perak have started in the pre-historic period and have been considered as the Malay heritage that continues to survive until now. But today it has been challenged by the emergence of pottery making using modern techniques and equipment. This development and changes have caused a major decline in the traditional pottery making activities using hand. From historical and anthropological perspective, this article attempts to show how far the process of change and modernisation of pottery making in Perak has brought a negative impact and influencing the decline of such traditional activities. Based on field studies conducted in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, it is found that up to now, the activities of traditional pottery making of ‘Labu Sayong’ in Perak has really been threatened and now there is only one family left still working on it. In conclusion, this study clearly shows the need for a more balanced policy that should be taken to ensure that modernisation will not threaten the Malay heritage which has existed since ancient times. This study also suggests a more proactive and drastic effort should be taken by the government to ensure that the heritage of the Malays will continue to survive in the futur

Socio-spatial inequalities in Sarawak: the role of Sarawak corridor of renewable energy (score)

The failure of the colonial government to develop the economic sector for this state was due to the adoption of a biased development approach. The biased approach focused on the potential of existing urban areas, and on economic growth oriented rather than distributed growth. Various economic development projects had been implemented since Sarawak became part of Malaysia. As the biggest state in the country with multi-ethnic population, Sarawak definitely needs more strategic development approach and attention from the central government. The Ninth Malaysia Plan has shown that spatial inequality in Sarawak has widened and needs attention. The launching of Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) marked the shift to the new approach of development in improving the spatial inequality in Sarawak through regional development strategy. This paper discusses the spatial inequality in Sarawak and explore the potential role of SCORE in regional development