The moderating effects of basic needs satisfaction at work on the relationships between burnout, work-family conflict and organizational commitment: relevance of the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory

In this modern era of competitiveness, work commitment is imperative as every organization strive to excel.Employees must find the means to achieve goals with full determination and commitment despite their personal difficulties. This paper analyses the moderation effect of the dimensions of basic needs satisfaction at work (autonomy, relatedness, and competence) on the relationships between burnout (exhaustion, professional efficacy, and cynicism), work-family conflict (work interfering with family (WIF), family interfering with work (FIW)), and the dimensions of organizational commitment (affective, continuance and normative).Two hundred and twenty administrative and professional groups from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (KLCH), Malaysia were involved in the study. The data gathered was examined using hierarchical multiple regression analysis to determine the moderating effects between variables.The findings revealed that: (1) autonomy moderates the relationships between exhaustion and continuance commitment; and (2) relatedness moderates the relationships between WIF and continuance commitment.The study has defined the motivating factors using the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory as a foundation for the discussion.Recommendations and areas for future research are also discussed

Kemahiran Belajar Dan Hubungannya Dengan Pencapaian Akademik: Kajian Di Daerah Kerian, Perak (The Relationship Between Learning Skills And Students Academic Achievement: A Study In The District Of Kerian, Perak)

Kajian ini bertujuan mengukur perhubungan antara kemahiran belajar dengan pencapaian akademik dalam kalangan pelajar pelbagai kebolehan di daerah Kerian, Perak. Di samping itu, kajian ini bertujuan menunjukkan sama ada terdapat perbezaan kemahiran belajar antara pelajar lelaki dengan pelajar perempuan, kepelbagaian pencapaian akademik dan lokasi sekolah seperti bandar dan luar bandar. Seramai 180 orang pelajar tingkatan empat yang mewakili dua buah sekolah yang berada di lokasi yang berbeza terlibat dalam kajian. Kajian ini menggunakan satu set soal selidik kemahiran belajar yang mengandungi dua bahagian. Bahagian pertama mengandungi maklumat demografi responden seperti nama sekolah dan jantina. Bahagian kedua pula mengandungi soalan mengenai kemahiran belajar. Data kajian dianalisis menggunakan ujian korelasi Pearson bagi mengukur perhubungan antara kemahiran belajar dengan pencapaian akademik. Ujian-t digunakan bagi mengenal pasti perbezaan kemahiran belajar antara jantina dan lokasi sekolah. Ujian ANOVA digunakan untuk mengenal pasti perbezaan kemahiran belajar di kalangan pelajar pelbagai kebolehan pencapaian akademik. Keputusan ujian-t menunjukkan tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan pada kemahiran belajar di kalangan pelajar tingkatan empat yang berlainan jantina dan lokasi sekolah. Keputusan ujian ANOVA menunjukkan terdapat perbezaan kemahiran belajar dalam kalangan pelajar pelbagai kebolehan pencapaian akademik. Ujian korelasi Pearson r pula menunjukkan terdapat perhubungan positif antara kemahiran belajar dengan pencapaian akademik (PMR)

Kesan tahap realistik karakter animasi talking-head ke atas emosi dan prestasi pelajar : satu kajian awal

Animasi talking-head merupakan animasi arahan yang mampu membantu pembelajaran kemahiran sebutan sesuatu perkataan secara betul dan tepat. Namun, kesilapan dalam penggunaan karakter animasi memberi kesan negatif kepada pelajar. Kajian ini memfokus kepada isu Uncanny Valley yang dapat memberi kesan kepada emosi pelajar akibat daripada karakter animasi yang hampir menyerupai manusia. Justeru, kajian ini menilai penggunaan animasi talking-head yang berbeza tahap realistik terhadap pembelajaran sebutan perkataan di Kolej Komuniti. Penilaian keberkesanan animasi ini diukur melalui ujian sebutan dan ujian emosi mengguna soal selidik AEQ. Empat perisian animasi talking-head dengan tahap realistik berbeza dibangun untuk diuji dan setiap perisian tersebut dipelajari secara kendiri oleh sekumpulan pelajar yang terdiri daripada 20 orang. Jumlah keseluruhan sampel ialah 80 orang terdiri daripada pelajar di empat buah kolej komuniti di Perak. Ujian statistik deskriptif seperti nilai min, sisihan piawai dan peratus diguna bagi menjawab persoalan kajian. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan perisian animasi talking-headtiga dimensi tidak realistik (3D-TR) memperoleh peratusan tertinggi dari sudut emosi dan prestasi sebutan pelajar manakala perisian animasi talking-head tiga dimensi realistik (3D-R) memperoleh peratusan terendah dari kedua-dua aspek tersebut. Justeru, penggunaan karakter animasi tiga dimensi talking-head yang tidak realistik merupakan tahap realistik yang terbaik untuk membentuk emosi yang positif seterusnya berpotensi meningkat prestasi pelajar

Distribution of underwriting surplus and investment profit from Tabarru’ fund: Shariah contracts applied and current market practice

Takaful is a contract whereby the participants commit to contribute an amount on regular basis or in one lump sum in a specified fund to mutually guarantee each other and appoint a body to act as the fund manager. In this contract, takaful participants have the opportunity to mitigate the possible financial risk that their families might encounter in case a misfortune happens to them. The contribution then will be placed into respective participant’s account or also known as Participants’ Investment Fund (PIF). The fund manager, i.e. takaful operator will drip from every PIF certain amount on the basis of donation into a collective Participants’ Risk Fund (PRF). Tabarru’ is Arabic word which means donation and due to the nature of PRF, it’s widely known in Islamic Finance as Tabarru’ Fund. Tabarru’ Fund is a separate entity from Takaful operator and participants, but t ownership remains with the participants. Being a fund, some money in it will be invested and would possibly realize investment profit. At the same time, with proper management of the Tabarru’ Fund, it might produce underwriting surplus after payment of claims at the end of financial year. There are several Shariah views and methods on the treatment of the investment profit and underwriting surplus generated from the fund. These views differ from one another depending on the contract adopted, which ultimately would define the permissibility of sharing the surplus between related parties. In Malaysia, the sharing of underwriting surplus is allowed according to the Shariah resolution passed by Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) subject to certain guidelines. All eleven Takaful operators in Malaysia have different practices in distributing the surplus and profit with respect to Shariah contracts applied and operational treatments. This research will study these differences and provide recommendations on the identified issues

Community social capital in Malaysia: A pilot study

Social capital is a vital concept in identifying resources in the social network, which has the capability to be used to improve life quality and to facilitate the society development process. It emerges in the form of individual asset and needs to be analyzed through collective lifestyle or a community. An initial process has been explored to identify social capital components. The outcome is translated into an instrument comprising of six social capital components based on survey items and past studies namely participation in community activities, proactivity in the social context, neighborhood connections, multi-racial tolerance, a sense of trust and protection, and life values. A pilot study involving 41 respondents was carried out in several neighboring areas in the northern part of Malaysia. The study results show that all six components have a high internal reliability value. These components of social capital are categorized into three levels namely low, moderate and high. The findings demonstrate that the majority of the four components are at the high level. They are participation in community activities, neighborhood connections, multi-racial tolerance, and, a sense of trust and protection whereas majority of the respondents for the components of proactivity in the social context and life values is at the moderate level

Monitoring insect pest infestation via different spectroscopic techniques

Nowadays, monitoring and observing insect pest populations is a major and crucial issue in agriculture, especially for crop protection. Spectroscopic techniques are well recognized for detecting and monitoring insect pests in the field and also the internal quality of fruit. There are several spectroscopic techniques with specific characteristic features, including mass spectrometry, ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and nuclear resonance spectroscopy. Nevertheless, limitations and complexity are the constraints of these technologies. In this paper, the spectroscopic and imaging spectroscopic techniques are discussed, compared, and investigated, namely fluorescence light detection and ranging (LIDAR) to study the fluorescence of diverse types of planthopper (Hemiptera) and moth (Lepidoptera), visible and near-infrared (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy to detect internal insect-infested jujubes, NIR spectroscopy to determine spectral properties of oil palm bagworms, hyperspectral transmittance image for detecting insect-damaged vegetable soybeans, and remote sensing measurement to detect bagworm infestation in oil palm plantations. These techniques are found to be reliable methods for better monitoring of insect pest movement in the harvested plant and in the ground, for the detection of insect-damaged vegetable soybeans and internal insect infestation in jujubes, and for the determination of oil palm bagworm spectral properties

Development and Experimental Investigation of a Marine Vessel Utilizing the Energy Ship Concept for Far Offshore Wind Energy Conversion

The energy ship is a concept for offshore wind energy capture which has received very little attention until today. To this date, there had not been yet an experimental proof of concept. In order to tackle this issue, an experimental platform and data acquisition system has been developed. A 5.5m long sailing catamaran served as a platform equipped with a 240mm diameter water turbine. The energy ship platform has been tested several times in the actual river to investigate the workability of the platform and data acquisition system. Results show that energy ship platform can produced 500W electric power for a true wind speed of 10 knots

Sound Velocity Profile (SYP) at Strait of Malacca for Maritime Warfare Usage

Nowadays, many tragedies and accidents happen in the oceans due to human negligence in handling equipment and also the ship itself. Therefore, it is important to do the hydrographic survey as it is the study about the physical of the sea. In the other words, the hydrographic survey also comes out with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary purpose of safety of navigation and in support of all other marine activities, including the economic development, security and defences, scientific research, and environmental protection. The sound velocity profile is a plot of propagation speed or velocity of sound as a function of depth and it is a fundamental tool for predicting how the sound will travel. The sound velocity profiles around the world are different. There are three factors affecting the sound velocity profile which is temperature, salinity, and pressure. The survey to get the sound velocity profile is using the sound velocity probe. The survey was done at 9 chosen locations at Straits of Malacca to get their sound velocity profile. The data from the sound velocity probe from the survey being collected by the hydrographic department and the sound velocity profile for 9 chosen locations at Straits of Malacca have been plotted. Therefore, the profile can be used as a reference for the tactical warfare usage and also for calibration of the echo sounder on board the ship

Understanding Malaysian Malays communication characteristics in reducing psychological impact on flood victims

Culture has a very important function in the daily lives of Malaysians. In spite of its importance, less attention has been paid to identifying Malaysian ethnic values from their own perspective. Most of previous studies have focused on a universal approach to identify the values of Malaysians. By addressing the gap, this paper hopes to identify a more comprehensive list of values related to Malaysian communication characteristics in flood disaster management context. Over the past decade, flood has become Malaysia’s most common natural disaster. Sustainable flood mitigation and relief management is important as it reflects the ruling government for dealing with crisis. The psychological support on victims’ wellbeing, during and after the disaster is substantial from the humanitarian perspective. Hence, this paper discusses the communication practices from indigenous perspective to help reduce the psychological impact of flooding. This paper presents qualitative data, based on in-depth interviews with 13 flood victims. The findings indicate that local values are important characteristics of effective communication surplus to the aids that bound to reduce the psychological impact of a disaster. This research intends to contribute in terms of the identification of the local code of conduct in communication in an attempt to obtain insights about flood disaster management. Besides, the outcome of the study could help to develop policies for aid agencies, information resources and community organisations in relation to the competency in communication to advocate the betterment and well-being of flood disaster victims

Identification And Non-Linear Control Strategy For Industrial Pneumatic Actuator

In this paper, a combination of nonlinear gain and proportional integral derivative (NPID) controller was proposed to the trajectory tracking of a pneumatic positioning system. The nonlinear gain was employed to this technique in order to avoid overshoot when a relatively large gain is used to produce a fast response. This nonlinear gain can vary automatically either by increasing or decreasing depending on the error generated at each instant. Mathematical model of a pneumatic actuator plant was obtained by using system identification based on input and output of open-loop experimental data. An auto-regressive moving average with exogenous (ARMAX) model was used as a model structure of the system. The results of simulation and experimental tests conducted for pneumatic system with different kind of input namely step, sinusoidal, trapezoidal and random waveforms were applied to evaluate the performance of the proposed technique. The results reveal that the proposed controller is better than conventional PID controller in terms of robust performance as well as show an improvement in its accuracy