Stare decisis: its development and application in West Malaysia / Mohammad Ramli Ahmad Dahlan

The sources of Malaysian law can divided into two main forms: written and the unwritten. Unwritten law is that part of law which is not enacted or embodied in any codes or statutes but develops through custom practices and decisions of courts, in this paper, the decisions of the courts will be consider d basically with the doctrine of Stare decisis. The object of this paper is to ascertain the extent to which the English doctrine of precedent is accepted in Malaysia, giving due consideration to the policy of the past and present needs of the courts of Malaysia. It has never been disputed that since the introduction of the doctrine to our country, it has gone through many developments, politically and constitutionally. In determining the doctrine in Malaysia, this paper would be divided into several chapters. Chapter one will discuss the doctrine itself and its early development in England. Chapter Two will highlight the introduction of the doctrine in the Straits settlements, -he application of the doctrine upon the formation of Malaysia will be discussed in Chapter Three with emphasis on the role of Privy . Council as the final Court of appeal then, chapter four will deal with the niera: chial system of precedents as practised today with the Supreme Court as its final court of appeal

Inventing and validation of questionnaires Muslim doctor questionnaire (MDQ) & Muslim medical student questionnaire (MMSQ)

Background:   International Islamic University Malaysia has pioneered the model of Islamic Input into Medical Program (IIMP). This is part of the main objective to enhance the affective domain in our curriculum. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of IIMP programme, it is important to an assessment tool. Once Kulliyyah is able to prove the effectiveness of IIMP, it is hope IIUM Kulliyyah of Medicine would be a role model in development of Islamic Medical Curriculum. At the moment there is not a single medical Islamic scale available. This we hope will be the pioneer of all.   Objectives:   To invent new questionnaires called MDQ & MMSQ that will be reliable and validated for the Muslim doctors and medical students respectively. To assess the good Muslim values in various academic years. To assess pre- and post- input of Islamic curriculum   Knowledge, Attitude, & Practice aspects on these domains;   Religiosity, Aqidah – (knowledge, practice) Knowledge of Relevant Medical Fiqh (knowledge), Ibadah (Rukhsah) Communication Skill – (attitude, practice) Behavior Professionalism Clinical Competence. Islamic Ethics, Islamic Medical Jurisprudence, Outward Manifestation Sincerity, Akhlak Morality, Confidentiality   Results; A total of 468 participants among students;. Reliability; Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91 and 8 domains were identified by using explanatory factor analysis with Varimax rotation. Validity; From items, 75% had good factor loading (>0.4). Therefore these 2 questionnaires are valid and reliable

Accuracy assessment of moderate resolution image spectroradiometer products for dust storms in semiarid environment.

Dust storms are strongly and negatively associated with the annual cycle of rainfall and coincide with the west and southwesterly winds in west and south west of Iran. Accuracy assessment of particulate matter products of moderate resolution image spectroradiometer was studied in this research. Moderate resolution image spectroradiometer products consist of aerosol optical thickness, its corresponding image red, green and blue and moderate resolution image spectroradiometer/ terra calibrated radiances 5 minutes L1B swath 1 km, which shows the environmental information at terrestrial, atmospheric and ocean phenomenology. Daily aerosol optical thickness data retrieved from moderate resolution image spectroradiometer from May 2009 to May 2010 were compared with the amount of particulate matter measured at ground in Sanandaj, Iran, using non-linear correlation coefficient. Results showed that the moderate resolution image spectroradiometer image / terra calibrated radiances 5 minutes L1B swath 1 km is able to detect dust storms distribution and their blowing direction over study area clearly. The air quality conditions obtained in with dust storm period were unhealthy and correlation coefficients between moderate resolution image spectroradiometer aerosol optical thickness and particulate matter concentration in this period were higher than without dust storm period. The moderate resolution image spectroradiometer aerosol optical thickness values lower than 0.1 were acquired uncertainty level. Comparison of moderate resolution image spectroradiometer images/ terra calibrated radiances 5 minutes L1B swath 1 km and image red, green and blue showed that moderate resolution image spectroradiometer has limitation in retrieval of aerosol optical thickness from the dust storm with high concentration of particulate matter. This study reveals that the algorithm which is applied to refine the aerosol optical thickness is not able to recognize the amount of particulate matter in low and very high concentrations sensitively. No study has previously been conducted to investigate the accuracy of the moderate resolution image spectroradiometer particulate matter products

Land surface temperature assessment in semi-arid residential area of Tehran, Iran using Landsat imagery

Land cover change especially from green areas to urban areas may increase land surface temperature (LST). In this study, Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on 15 May 2000 (spring), 9 July 2000 (summer), 26 November 2000 (autumn) and 10 January 2001(winter) were utilized to study LST in Tehran, Iran. The accuracy of the LST analysis was evaluated using six year ground temperature data. The Non Linear Correlation Coefficient (NLCC) between normalized differences vegetation index (NDVI) and LST was found to be higher in the spring compared to the other seasons. The LST value in the west of the city was similar to the surrounding areas, but in north, east and south of the city were lower compared to the north, north east and east of the surrounding areas in all seasons. The gravel and sandy soil in the western part of the surrounding areas were warmer than the impervious surface area (ISA) in the city in summer. It was found that high urban density in semi arid climate with low vegetation in the surrounding areas does not increase the LST value in the city compared to its surrounding areas

PM10 monitoring using MODIS AOT and GIS, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Remote sensing has been increasingly used in retrieval Aerosol optical thickness (AOT) to particulate matter pollution monitoring. In this study, Moderate resolution image Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data were utilized in particulate matter pollution monitoring. Daily aerosol optical thickness (AOT) data retrieved from MODIS using Non-Linear Correlation Coefficient (NLCC) with polynomial equation Were compared with the amount of particulate matter PMIO measured at Three ground Air Quality Monitoring Stations (AQMS)-Victoria Kl, Cheras Kl and Gombak- in Kuala lumpur and surrounding area. The PMIO data were imported in geographical information system (GIS) environment to derive the PMIO maps in Kuala Lumpur stations. Results showed that the amounts of PMIO in dry season are higher than those in rainy season in stations. The NLCC between MODIS AOT and PMIO concentration was obtained higher in Victoria Kl compared to Gombak and Cheras Kl. GIS maps were found to show better distribution of PMIO compared to the ground station data. This study reveals AOT data from MODIS and GIS map can be utilized to study the air quality, especially distribution of PMIO in the places where there are ground measurements

Improved SIFT algorithm for place categorization

The main aim of this paper is an improvement of the famous Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) algorithm used in place categorization. Masking approach to reduce the computational complexity of SIFT have been proposed. Tradeoff between key points and processing time on feature extraction has been used. Selected parameters used in the experiment demonstrated that the computational cost of SIFT in feature extraction can be reduced to half. The categorization performance techniques of the masked image achieved good accuracy of more than 80% and further experimental results on classification using nearest neighbor achieved good results. The proposed method will help to minimize computation cost in SIFT thereby, improving the performance of robotic mapping, navigation, and matching

Hydrological response of semi-arid river catchment to rainfall and temperature fluctuations

Determining the response of basin water resources to rainfall and temperature fluctuations is a crucial source of information for basins water resources planning and management. The study used a descriptive, Mann-Kendall trend test (M-K) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). The mean, standard deviations and variations were spatially interpolated using the geostatistical technique. The trend results showed an increase in both rainfall and temperature series. However, the only statistically significant trends were in June and September for rainfall series and in February, May, and April for the temperature series. Rainfall exhibited high temporal variability whereas temperature showed high spatial variability. The intra-annual variability was higher than the inter-annual variability, suggesting that the local climate is largely controlled by natural force. The result of the multiple linear regression (R2=0.431), indicates that the hydrology and water resources of the basin are impacted largely by factors not considered in this study such as land use changes, infiltration, and rate of evaporation among others. However, among the factor considered, rainfall (Beta = 0.505; P = 001) has the highest impacts on the river discharge behavior and should be given preference while addressing water resources predicaments in the catchment

Kuala Pedas: data survei terkini tapak Kota Pedas

Data kajian mengenai kota-kota Melayu di Negeri Sembilan telah pun dilakukan oleh beberapa pengkaji terdahulu seperti, Newbold dan Abdul Halim Nasir serta Norhalim Ibrahim. Data mereka kebanyakan tertumpu kepada kawasan pantai barat Negeri Sembilan terutama di Port Dickson dan sekitar lembangan Sungai Linggi. Kesemuanya boleh dikategorikan sebagai kawasan kediaman masyarakat Bugis dan orang Rembau. Masih kurang kajian arkeologi mengenai tapak Kota Pedas yang terdapat di dalam kawasan ladang Kuala Pedas. Justeru itu, kajian ini akan membincangkan data survei terkini di Kuala Pedas mengenai kota ini. Kajian ini penting untuk mendedahkan data survei terkini mengenai tapak Kota Pedas ini. Memandangkan Kota Pedas ini di temui di dalam kawasan Kuala Pedas maka pengkaji akan membincangkannya secara bersama dalam kajian ini. Untuk itu, pengkaji telah melakukan satu survei lapangan di samping temubual terhadap individu yang selayaknya di kawasan tersebut. Hasilnya pengkaji mendapati lokasi tapak Kota Pedas ini berada di dalam kawasan ladang di Kuala Pedas dan beberapa bongkah batu serta serpihan seramik turut ditemui di kawasan tersebut sebagai jumpaan permukaan. Sumbangan kajian ini boleh dijadikan kajian rintis dalam bidang arkeologi mengenai kota-kota Melayu di Negeri Sembilan dan sekaligus menjadi rujukan bagi pengkaji seterusnya yang ingin menjalankan penyelidikan di Kuala Pedas dan Kota Pedas