Costs of production and labour productivity: 1978 and 1983 Malaysian vintage technology

By using the 1978 and 1983 Malaysian input-output tables, the paper attempts to determine differences in costs of production caused by changing price structure. Appropriate price indices for producer and import prices and wage rates are formulated involving cost-transformation of product and trade classifications when input-output classification is adopted. The paper estimates sectoral costs of production (including labour) for each vintage and their levels measure technological change and obsolescence. It also estimates total labour requirements for each vintage. It was found that older (younger) vintage has higher (lower) costs of production and requires more (less) labour

Responding to ‘nurturing global collaboration and networked learning in higher education’

Letter to the Editor No abstract availabl

An integrated representation scheme for assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing

In a typical assembly optimisation, Assembly Sequence Planning and Assembly Line Balancing are performed independently. However, competition has compelled the manufacturer to innovate by integrating the optimisation of both problems. To incorporate ASP and ALB optimisations into a single integrated optimisation, a clear prerequisite is the availability of integrated ASP and ALB representation. Although many assembly representation works has been proposed, none of them fully meet the requirements of integrated optimisation because they were developed independently from various needs. In this paper, an integrated representation scheme for ASP and ALB that incorporate essential optimisation information is developed. The proposed representation scheme is built based on assembly tasks and represented using precedence graph and data matrix. The outcome from presented example showed that the information for ASP and ALB optimisation can be integrated and represented using task based precedence graph and data matrix, without discarding important attributes

Multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation algorithm for integrated assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing

In assembly optimisation, assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing have been extensively studied because both activities are directly linked with assembly efficiency that influences the final assembly costs. Both activities are categorised as NP-hard and usually performed separately. Assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing optimisation presents a good opportunity to be integrated, considering the benefits such as larger search space that leads to better solution quality, reduces error rate in planning and speeds up time-to-market for a product. In order to optimise an integrated assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing, this work proposes a multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation algorithm that used discrete procedures to update its position and velocity in finding Pareto optimal solution. A computational experiment with 51 test problems at different difficulty levels was used to test the multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation performance compared with the existing algorithms. A statistical test of the algorithm performance indicates that the proposed multi-objective discrete particle swarm optimisation algorithm presents significant improvement in terms of the quality of the solution set towards the Pareto optimal set

Peranan Sains Matematik dalam pembangunan negara

Umumnya, bidang Sains Matematik ini dipandang oleh kebanyakan orang sebagai satu bidang yang agak sukar difahami dan dikuasai. Namun, kepentingannya tidak dapat disangkal khususnya dalam aplikasinya dalam kehidupan seharian daripada semudahmudah Matematik kepada yang terlalu kompleks sehingga memerlukan bantuan teknologi terkini seperti kalkulator mahupun teknologi komputer melalui perisian-perisian yang tertentu untuk menyelesaikan sesuatu masalah

Pendidikan sepanjang hayat iktiraf kemahiran

Pembelajaran melalui pengalaman adalah suatu proses pembelajaran yang diperoleh melalui interaksi sesama rakan sekerja sehari-hari

The Effect of Detention Pond’s Outlet Design to the Peak Discharge of a Watershed

Flood occurs when the water discharge of a watershed exceed the drain capacity. One of the solutions to avoid flood when this occurs is by having a detention pond to control the amount of water discharge below the discharge capacity of the drain. This research project is to explore further on the effect of detention pond built in terms of its outlet design base on simple outlet structures frequently used by JP

Microbiological and Chemical Quality of Keropok Lekor during Processing And Storage

Keropok lekor is an important fish product in Malaysia. The customers’ demands for keropok lekor have been increasing. This study was conducted to analyze the microbiological and chemical quality of keropok lekor in every stage of its processing, namely mincing, mixing, kneading, boiling and cooling. Subsequently, this study was also undertaken in an attempt to determine the effectiveness of post processing treatment on keropok lekor in order to prolong its shelf life. The method used to analyze the microbiological quality is known as the direct plate counts for the total plate counts (TPC), psychrotrophic, yeasts and molds, mesophilic sporeformer, Staphylococcus aureus, total coliform and fecal coliform counts. Simple biochemical test was carried out to identify the presumptive bacteria present in keropok lekor processing. Chemical quality was analyzed on the total volatile bases (TVB) and trimethylamine (TMA), using Conway microdiffusion method, and biogenic amines was done using the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The post-processing treatments on keropok lekor were exposing keropok lekor to UV light for 15 or 30 min, either coated with different concentrations of ascorbic acid (500, 1000 or 1500 ppm) or dipped in hot oil for 3, 6 or 9 s, and stored at the room temperature for 7 d or at chill temperature (4±1°C) for 14 d. When processing keropok lekor, the boiling of keropok lekor at 100°C for 10 min reduced the TPC (4.38±0.47 log10 cfu/g), psychrotrophic counts (2.00 ± 0.00 log10 cfu/g), mesophilic sporeformer counts (1.26 ± 0.34 log10 cfu/g) and total coliform counts (1.71±0.51 log MPN/g) significantly (p>0.05). However, the microbial counts were found to increase significantly (p<0.05) after the cooling process, except for the yeast and mold counts and S. aureus counts. The presumptive predominant microorganisms, isolated before the boiling stage, were members of the Enterobacteriaceae family and those belonging to Pseudomonas, Vibrio, Staphylococcus, Bacillus and Micrococcus genus. After the boiling stage, the presumptive predominant microorganisms were members of Enterobacteriace family and those belonging to Micrococcus, Bacillus, Staphylococcus and Aerococcus genus. As for the chemical quality, TVB and TMA levels were indicated to significantly decrease (p<0/05) after boiling from 7.29 to 4.68 mg/ 100g and 3.38 to 1.81 mg/ 100g, respectively, but not for the putrescine, cadaverine and histamine levels. Before the boiling stage, presumptive microorganisms producing putrescine, cadaverine and histamine were members of the Enterobacteriaceae family, as well as members of Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas and Micrococcus genus. Members of the genus Pseudomonas, which produce biogenic amines, were not isolated from keropok lekor after the boiling stage. The post-processing treatment which was applied on keropok lekor was found to enhance both its quality and shelf life. The results showed that exposing keropok lekor to UV light for 15 min and dipping it in hot oil for 9 s had extended the shelf life of this snack for 5 d when v stored at the room temperature, and for 14 d when stored at 4±1°C. This post processing treatment had also caused a significant reduction in TPC, psychrotrophic count, yeasts and molds count, TVB, as well as TMA and putrescine, cadaverine and histamine level. On the contrary, ascorbic acid was not as effective in increasing the shelf life of keropok lekor or in reducing TVB, TMA and putrescine, cadaverine and histamine level, as compared to dipping it in hot oil