Hubungan motivasi guru dengan penggunaan ICT dalam pengajaran di SJK (T) daerah Kuala Muda Yan

Kajian ini adalah untuk mengenal pasti tahap motivasi guru-guru SJK (T) di daerah Kuala Muda Yan (KMY) dalam penggunaan ICT demi memantapkan pengajaran dan pembelajaran (PdP) dan untuk mengukur hubungan antara tahap motivasi guru dengan masalah penggunaan ICT.Analisis koleksi literatur yang dibaca oleh pengkaji menunjukkan kebanyakan kajian ICT telah dibuat dari aspek sikap, kemahiran dan kepercayaan guru.Oleh yang sedemikian, pengkaji telah menitikberatkan aspek motivasi sebagai faktor kajian ini. Kajian ini adalah berbentuk kuantitatif yang menggunakan soal selidik.Responden adalah seramai 150 orang guru dari 5 buah sekolah di Daerah Kuala Muda Yan, Kedah.Bagi menganalisis data perisian SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) telah digunakan.Kaedah seperti statistik deskriptif untuk melihat ciri-ciri demografi responden dan korelasi telah digunakan untuk melihat hubungan antara tahap motivasi guru dan penggunaan ICT.Untuk mengkaji tahap motivasi dan pencapaian ICT taburan min dan sisihan piawai secara keseluruhan telah digunakan.Hasil kajian menunjukkan tahap motivasi guru adalah tinggi tetapi tahap penggunaan ICT pula rendah disebabkan oleh beberapa masalah seperti kekurangan kemahiran ICT guru, jaringan internet yang lambat, kemudahan ICT dan sokongan teknikal pihak sekolah yang rendah dan kekurangan masa.Berdasarkan hasil kajian lagi didapati tahap motivasi guru adalah berhubungan negatif dengan masalah penggunaan ICT. Jadi, sokongan pihak sekolah, KPM dan guru itu sendiri amat dititikberatkan untuk mengintegrasikan ICT sepenuhnya dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran (PdP)

Fuzzy interpretation of efficiency in data envelopment analysis and its application in a non-discretionary model

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a nonparametric model which evaluates the relative efficiencies of decision-making units (DMUs).These DMUs produce multiple outputs by using multiple inputs and the relative efficiency is evaluated using a ratio of total weighted output to total weighted input.In this paper an alternative interpretation of efficiency is first given. The interpretation is based on the fuzzy concept even though the inputs and outputs data are crisp numbers.With the interpretation, a new model for ranking DMUs in DEA is proposed and a new perspective of viewing other DEA models is now made possible.The model is then extended to incorporate situations whereby some inputs or outputs, in a fuzzy sense, are almost discretionary variables

Upgraded data envelopment analysis model application for total productivity comparison in major airports of the European Union

In order to compare the productivity of airports different scientific approaches are used by various authors. Previous research has shown wide application of the data envelopment analysis (D.E.A.) model for productivity comparison. The D.E.A. model may be used to compare both partial and total factor productivity. However, aggregation of the separate partial factors into a single D.E.A. model is still not sufficiently investigated. The purpose of this paper is to suggest the integration of two methods – DEA and Delphi Expert Panel – to solve this problem. A model was developed and experimentally tested with 15 major European Union airports. The results show that the suggested model could be efficiently used to compare the airports’ productivity, which is expressed by a large set of attributes. The main conclusion is that model can be successfully used to compare airports by different criteria through integrating the DEA and Delphi Expert Panel techniques. The model can be used for any set of airports to compare productivity. The research could be useful to airport managers and investors, as well as to researchers in the area of D.E.A. application

Relationships among health care expenditure, infectious diseases, governance and labour productivity in Africa

The first objective of the study was to examine the impact of health care expenditure and infectious diseases (IDs), like HIV/AIDS and TB, on labour productivity (LP) in Africa. Using System GMM estimators based on the endogenous growth theory for 50 panels of African countries from 2002–2011, the results show that health care expenditure per capita is positive but statistically insignificant in affecting LP in Africa. However, the result confirmed the negative and statistically significant impact of IDs on LP in the region. The second objective of the study was to assess the role of governance in health care expenditure and the spread of IDs. The System GMM result revealed that, in the African context, weakness of government effectiveness and control of corruption are found to be positive but statistically insignificant in improving the level of health care expenditure in Africa. On the other hand, political instability and war/conflict are found to be factors that increase the spread of IDs in the region. Finally, the third objective of the study was to determine the level of the efficiency of health care expenditure among 29 low-income countries and 21 middle-income countries in Africa. The study employed a Stochastic Frontier Approach, and the result showed that low-income countries were slightly more efficient than middle-income countries in the utilisation of health care expenditure. However, none of the countries achieved full efficiency in health care expenditure in the region. Thus, the study recommended that African governments and healthrelated development partners increase the fiscal amount allocated to the health sector in accordance with the ―Abuja Declaration, 2001‖ to improve health care financing and provide healthy workers in order to increase LP in the region. In addition, more efforts are needed through strengthened governance in terms of government effectiveness and control of corruption to improve health care expenditure and control the spread of IDs in the region. Governments should improve both socioeconomic and environmental factors affecting health, other than health care, to reduce the burden on health care facilities and lessen the spread of disease in the region

Assessing the efficiency of Lithuanian transport sector by applying the methods of multimoora and data envelopment analysis

This study focuses on evaluating Lithuanian transport sector throughout 1995–2009 by applying multi–criteria decision making method MULTIMOORA (Multi–Objective Optimization plus the Full Multiplicative Form) and data envelopment analysis (DEA). MULTIMOORA provided ranks that enabled to perform time series analysis, whereas DEA made possible to identify both technical and scale inefficiencies. Due to limited data availability, we analyzed the transport sector as a whole, i. e. it was not decomposed into that of land, air, railway or water. Although every production factor, including labour, capital and land is required for developing the transport sector, due to limited data availability, it is not possible to tackle them all when performing analysis. Consequently, one input, namely energy consumption in transport, was considered in the conducted analysis. On the other hand, two forms of transport – passenger and freight transport – were distinguished, and each of them was measured using composite indicators of passenger and tonne kilometres respectively. These two indices were considered as the outputs of transport sector activity. The final ranks provided by MULTIMOORA indicate that the transport sector was operating most effectively during 2004–2008, whereas it exhibited relative inefficiency throughout 1996–1998. The application of DEA suggests that the efficiency downturn of 1996–1998 might have been caused by technical inefficiency, whereas that of 2008–2009 was driven by scale inefficiency. Indeed, the technical modernization of the transport sector as well as the resolution of resource allocation problems might have lead to an increase in technical efficiency. Meanwhile, economic downturn prevents the transport system from working at full capacity; hence, scale efficiency is still observed

Inexact discretionary inputs in data envelopment analysis

In this chapter, the relationship between fuzzy concepts and the efficiency score in Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is dealt with.A new DEA model for handling crisp data using fuzzy concept is proposed.In addition, the relationship between possibility sets and the efficiency score in the traditional crisp CCR model is presented.The relationship provides an alternative perspective of viewing efficiency.With the usage of the appropriate fuzzy and possibility sets to represent certain characteristics of the input data, many DEA models involving input data with various characteristics could be studied.Furthermore, based upon the proposed models, two nondiscretionary models are introduced in which some inputs or outputs, in a fuzzy sense, are inexact discretionary variables.For this purpose, a two-stage algorithm will be presented to treat the DEA model in the presence of an inexact discretionary variable.With this relationship, a new perspective of viewing and exploring other DEA models is now made possible

Método para la valoración de eficiencia usando análisis envolvente de datos en ambiente borroso

The objective of this paper is to develop a method based on fuzzy logic for the evaluation of the efficiency of decision units (Decision Making Unit, DMU) using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for the handling of inaccurate data. The Alpha-cut approach is used for efficiency assessment, and the obtained fuzzy parameters are then sorted. For the evaluation of the method's usefulness, the data of a Hospital system and 12 DMU's were used. This research proposes an approach for the valuation and classification of DMU's, useful for the decision making process.El presente artículo tiene como objetivo el desarrollo de un método, basado en la lógica borrosa, para la valoración de la eficiencia de unidades de decisión (Decision Making Unit, DMU) usando Análisis Envolvente de Datos (Data Envelopment Analysis, DEA), para el manejo de datos imprecisos. Se aplica el enfoque basado en alfa-cortes para calcular la eficiencia y seguidamente se ordenan los números borrosos obtenidos. El método desarrollado utiliza los datos referentes al servicio de un sistema hospitalario, con doce DMU a efecto de probar la utilidad del método. Este trabajo muestra una visión de la valoración y clasificación de las DMU bajo incertidumbre, útil para el proceso de toma de decisiones. &nbsp

Comments on “Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview”

This paper offers comments on a previously published paper, titled “Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview,” by Zavadskas and Turskis (2011). The paper's authors made great efforts to summarize MCDM methods but may have failed to consider several important new concepts and trends in the MCDM field for solving actual problems. First, the traditional model assumes the criteria are independently and hierarchically structured; however, in reality, problems are often characterized by interdependent criteria and dimensions and may even exhibit feedback-like effects. Second, relatively good solutions from the existing alternatives are replaced by aspiration levels to fit today's competitive markets. Third, the emphasis in the field has shifted from ranking and selection when determining the most preferable approaches to performance improvement of existing methods. Fourth, information fusion techniques, including the fuzzy integral method, have been developed to aggregate the performances. Finally, the original fixed resources in multi-objective programming are divided such that both decision and objective spaces are changeable. In this paper, we add new concepts and provide comments that could be thought of as an attempt to complete the original paper