Calendar Anomalies and the Islamic Stock Market Returns: Evidences on day of the week effect

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of calendar anomalies specifically on day of the week effect (DOW) on 10 Islamic stock markets’ returns such as Dow Jones Islamic Market (DJIM), Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, Indonesia, Bahrain, Pakistan—for 20 years from 25 September 2000 to 24 September 2020. The methods of study using Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and Exponential Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) as a robustness test. The findings revealed that calendar anomalies had considerable impacts on returns for the following Islamic stock markets: DJIM, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Keywords: Calendar anomalies; day of the week effect; GARCH; EMH. eISSN: 2398-4287© 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI9.424

Prediction of fatigue level during exercise in virtual reality environment for hajj pilgrimage

Strenuous activities, especially through the eight days of the Hajj pilgrimage journey, may cause exhaustion for the Hajj pilgrims after completing each stage. Environmental factors such as being in overcrowded places and having to endure hot temperatures alongside continuous vigorous activities during the Hajj can result in serious exhaustion where individual body muscles and the cardio-respiratory systems are affected, resulting in muscle cramps, dehydration and possibly illness such as fever, hypertension, stroke, asthma and heart attack. This paper aims to introduce a wearable device that can assist the pilgrims to monitor their exhaustion threshold. To test this, 30 healthy people who are about to perform hajj were chosen as respondents for the study. These subjects performed fatigue- induced exercises by walking or running on a treadmill which is integrated with a 3D virtual reality environment of Makkah. The speed of the treadmill increased its intensity at every 2 minute interval from 4 km per hour to 12km per hour until the subjects’ exhaustion threshold is reached. Simultaneously, heart rate, blood pressure and muscle fatigue were closely monitored using the developed device attached to their wrists. This device uses an electrocardiogram (ECG) and an electromyography (EMG) measurement and produces three different colour signals ranging from green, yellow and red to indicate the subjects’ exhaustion level. The data collection of each subject was then analysed using the SPSS software and also modelled in MATLAB software for the ANN method. As a result, the accuracy of prediction model presented from this study is 89.3%, indicating a high indicator for the fatigue level. Overall, this study is expected to be beneficial for hajj pilgrims who wish to evaluate their own body fitness when preparing for their Hajj pilgrimage

Reliability Testing of Self-Care of Heart Failure Index v6.2 Chinese Instrument Among Heart Failure Patients

Objective: Self-Care of Heart Failure Index (SCHFI) v6.2 Chinese is an instrument used to assess the ability of self-care behaviour among heart failure patients. It has been validated in Taiwan, however, it is yet to be validated in Malaysia. As a multi-ethnic country, Chinese language has been one of the major languages in Malaysia. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the reliability of Self-Care of Heart Failure Index (SCHFI) v6.2 Chinese among Malaysian population. Design: A successive independent sample design was used throughout a 4-months data collection period. Setting: Eighty heart failure patients from University of Malaya Medical Centre and National Heart Institute were recruited through purposive sampling. The two hospitals were chosen because they have specialized heart clinics that eased the data collection. The out-patients were screened by the cardiologists for their eligibility to participate in this study. Measures: The samples were administered with SCHFI v6.2 Chinese. The item endorsement index, internal consistency and item-total correlation of SCHFI v6.2 Chinese were examined. Results: The maintenance subscale of SCHFI showed a low internal consistency (Cronbach α = .52) while the management and confidence subscales showed an acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach α = .67 and .90 respectively). Conclusion: SCHFI v6.2 Chinese is a reliable instrument to be used among the Malaysian population

Laboratory Operational Management (OPMI) and Chemical Storage Database (CSDB) in laboratory

An improper documentation of laboratory operation and management results in non-uniformity of workload, complexity and difficulty of tasks especially in terms of procurement, storage and record management. Additionally, the increasing of equipment units accompanied by manual and multi-packaged maintenance also contributes to the difficulties in administration, hence demands an effective and systematic documentation system. Furthermore, the higher of unregulated supply of chemicals in laboratories has made an inconvenience management and record control for the relevant parties. These problems have influence the updating, finding and accessing of chemical information and records due to inefficient record management. To ensure the laboratory comply with the authority’s rules, the implementation of new well-ordered system that comparable with Quality Management System (QMS) is crucial so that the laboratory operations is manageable. This new internal system that cover a number of key aspects such as the management of equipment inventories, chemicals and laboratory are established and regulated through INBIOSIS's Laboratory Operational Management (OPMI). INBIOSIS’s OPMI was introduced 3 years after the establishment of INBIOSIS in 2005. Throughout the year, the ideas and experience has sparks our innovation towards the centralised database management of chemicals inventory which called as Chemical Storage DataBase (CSDB). This database system is able to accommodate the full range of chemical information in laboratories that facilitates updating, storing information, searching and improving data access. This model is capable of promoting on-line and paperless data management and enhancing operational efficiency through time, energy and cost savings. With the well-establishment of those models, we have successfully awarded as the winner of Anugerah Tempat Kerja Kondusif 2016 and Anugerah Tempat Kerja Selamat 2016

Loss of Karma transposon methylation underlies the mantled somaclonal variant of oil palm

Somaclonal variation arises in plants and animals when differentiated somatic cells are induced into a pluripotent state, but the resulting clones differ from each other and from their parents. In agriculture, somaclonal variation has hindered the micropropagation of elite hybrids and genetically modified crops, but the mechanism responsible remains unknown. The oil palm fruit 'mantled' abnormality is a somaclonal variant arising from tissue culture that drastically reduces yield, and has largely halted efforts to clone elite hybrids for oil production. Widely regarded as an epigenetic phenomenon, 'mantling' has defied explanation, but here we identify the MANTLED locus using epigenome-wide association studies of the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis. DNA hypomethylation of a LINE retrotransposon related to rice Karma, in the intron of the homeotic gene DEFICIENS, is common to all mantled clones and is associated with alternative splicing and premature termination. Dense methylation near the Karma splice site (termed the Good Karma epiallele) predicts normal fruit set, whereas hypomethylation (the Bad Karma epiallele) predicts homeotic transformation, parthenocarpy and marked loss of yield. Loss of Karma methylation and of small RNA in tissue culture contributes to the origin of mantled, while restoration in spontaneous revertants accounts for non-Mendelian inheritance. The ability to predict and cull mantling at the plantlet stage will facilitate the introduction of higher performing clones and optimize environmentally sensitive land resources