Peranan Refleksi Kritikal dan Dialog Dalam Pembelajaran Transformatif Dalam Kalangan Bekas Penagih Dadah

Kertas kerja ini akan membincangkan fenomena transformasi perspektif bekas penagih dadah dalam konteks pengalaman sebagai seorang bekas penagih dadah. Dadah merupakan musuh nombor satu di Malaysia. Dunia mengenali Malaysia sebagai sebuah negara yang tidak pernah bertolenrasi dengan masalah penagihan dadah. Saban tahun bilangan penagih dadah yang mengambil dadah semakin meningkat. Pada tahun 2013 terdapat peningkatan sebanyak 24% terhadap kes penagihan dadah. Berdasarkan kepada statistik penagih dadah Malaysia pada tahun 2013 sebanyak 13,481 kes baru dikesan dan 7,406 kes merupakan kes penagih berulang. Berdasarkan kepada kajian-kajian terdahulu para pengkaji lebih memberi penekanan terhadap punca, faktor dan cara menangani masalah penagihan dadah. Dengan kata lain, kajian terhadap transformasi perspektif bekas penagih dadah di Malaysia kurang diberi perhatian berbanding di negara Barat. Kertas kerja ini ini akan membincangkan perihal proses pembelajaran yang berlaku dalam usaha bekas penagih dadah kembali kepada kehidupan normal. Salah satu elemen pembelajaran yang berlaku dalam sistem kognitif orang dewasa (dalam konteks ini bekas penagih dadah) adalah refleksi kritikal. Justeru itu, kertas kerja ini akan mengenalpasti peranan refleksi kritikal dalam membantu proses transformasi perspektif bekas penagih dadah. Refleksi kritikal merupakan elemen penting dalam pembelajaran transformatif yang mana bekas penagih dadah berusaha mencari jalan penyelesaian pada ketagihan dadah dengan melakukan refleksi kritikal terhadap pengalaman lampau mereka. Mereka akan merenung, berfikir semula, menyemak dan memeriksa pengalaman sebagai seorang penagih dadah

Verbal memory test performance in patients with bipolar I disorder attending a psychiatric clinic of a university hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Objective: The study aims to determine pattern of verbal memory and learning impairment and its associated factors among patients with bipolar I disorder in a psychiatric clinic of a university hospital. Methods: A case control study comparing verbal memory test performance in 40 patients with bipolar I disorder to that of 40 healthy normal subjects using Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). The association between demographic, clinical characteristics and poor verbal memory performance were examined. Results: Up to 92% of patients with bipolar I disorder have impaired short term working memory in this hospital-based study. They also recalled fewer words in all the RAVLT trials and had difficulties learning the word list in comparison to that of normal healthy individuals. Verbal memory and learning impairment are observed in bipolar illness in the absence of active mood symptoms while duration and severity of illness are not found to have any effect on verbal memory and learning. Conclusion: There is consistent verbal memory and learning problems in individuals with bipolar I disorder and their presence in the absence of mania, depression and mixed symptoms during the course of the illness suggests a trait related deficit

Neuro-cognitive performance in patients with schizophrenia: a cross-sectional study in a psychiatric clinic of a University Hospital

Introduction: Poor neuro-cognitive performance in patients with schizophrenia has been described as a core symptom of the illness and is shown to be associated with poor psycho-social functioning. Management of schizophrenia has shifted its focus to treat this deficit apart from only emphasising on positive and negative symptoms, as it will subsequently improve patient functioning and outcome. Objective: The study aims to determine the proportion of neuro-cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia in a psychiatric clinic in Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and factors that are likely to be associated with the impairment. Method: Across-sectional study design was conducted in this hospital-based study and subjects were randomly chosen from the psychiatric clinic. Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Digit Forward and Backward (DF and DB), Trail Making Test (TMT) and Verbal Fluency Test (VF) were used to assess subjects' neuro-cognitive performance that measured their verbal memory and executive functioning of the brain. Results: The proportion of neuro-cognitive impairment is estimated at about 80% in patients with schizophrenia in this hospital-based study. A higher percentages of respondents had abnormal scores for RAVLT1, RAVLT5 and RAVLTB tests(75.6%, 68.3% and 82.9% respectively). The majority of respondents had normal scores for DF, VF tests (80.5% and 73.2% respectively), and about 51.2% of respondents had normal scores for DB test. For TMT, overall performance of respondents in Set A and B was poor. The mean duration of time taken to complete both sets was longer than that of a normal population based on age group: (age group: 18-39 years; TMT A 68.98 vs 40 seconds; TMT B 174.09 vs 90 seconds and age group: 40-49 years; TMT A 58.57 vs 45 seconds; TMT B 162.43 vs 100 seconds). There was a significant association between duration of illness and scores of RAVLT1 and between age of onset of illness and RAVLTB scores (p<0.05). There was no significant association between scores of all tests with the type of treatment received by respondents. Conclusion: The proportion of neuro-cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia is very high (80%) and has major implications on the current management of schizophrenia in which this core symptom should also be a focus of treatment. The significant association between clinical factors and neuro-cognitive impairment highlights the importance of modifying those factors in order to minimise the deficit in patients with schizophrenia

Accelerating Creative Techno-preneuriship Through Innovative Design and Technology Integration

Creative techno-preneurship investigates a new frontier in the integration of creative technology to design more innovative entrepreneurship models to suit their business model and the goals of their organization. Entrepreneurs use this technology and approach creatively to identify opportunities from advanced creative technology research and development that can be used for entrepreneurship activities. To remain competitive, businesses must innovate. Simultaneously, technology is constantly advancing, and work-related tools are constantly changing. This forces organizations to stay current with technology and puts pressure on employees to use the technologies at their disposal to create innovative solutions that further the organization’s goals. It is hoped that this integration model will be a milestone in the trend to support future developments of digital content in particular to uplift the digital comic development in Malaysia. Keywords: creative innovation, digital technology, creative techno-preneurship, incubato

TINJAUAN PEMBUDAYAAN KITAR SEMULA DALAM KALANGAN PELAJAR “TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING†(TVET)

Recycling is an effort to collect, process and reuse the things that have been used. This descriptive research was done to find out the recycling practice among “Technical Vocational Education and Training†(TVET) students. The focus of this research is to identify students’ prior knowledge on nature, recycling practice among Bandar Penawar Community College students and to identify ways to increase the awareness level among Bandar Penawar Community College students. This research uses survey instruments. The descriptive and interpretive statistics with frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation that was obtained was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The sample of this research involving respondents consists of Bandar Penawar Community College students. The instrument used in this research is in the form of survey that consists of four items regarding to the background of the respondents and questions related to the research questions. Based on the findings of the research, most of the respondents gave positive perceptions on the recycling practice. This shows that the respondents are aware of the importance of recycling for the benefits of the community generally. Everyone should create and make an effort to recycle to help preventing from disasters to the human beings. Hence, recycling of the waste such as papers, cans, newspapers and others is one of the preservation and conservation of nature

Obesity among urban primary schoolchildren

Three urban public primary schools in the district of Petaling, Selangor were surveyed for obesity amongst the schoolchildren and factors related to it. The prevalence of obesity amongst primary schoolchildren, with the mean age of 8.91 years was 9.5%. In addition, it was more prevalent among the boys (p<0.05) as compared to the girls. However, there was no difference with regards to ethnicity, being breastfed, physical activity, time spent watching television or fast food intake in relation to obesity among these primary schoolchildren. A larger community study is required to determine if other specific factors and dietary energy intake are associated with obesity amongst primary schoolchildren, especially in rural or less urbanised regions

Verbs and gender: the hidden agenda of a multicultural society

This study explores the issue of gender inequality displayed in action verbs found in English language secondary school textbooks using the Hidden Curriculum Theory. The two aspects of hidden curriculum are the frequency imbalance, i.e., male occurrences are more than female, and gender stereotyping based on roles, i.e., masculine against feminine activities. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods for collecting data. Wordsmith Tools 4.0 (WST) was used to analyse five categories of action verbs: activity verbs, process verbs, verbs of bodily sensation, transitional event verbs, and momentary verbs. The concordance tool from the WST was used to tabulate occurrences based on gender portrayals. School teachers who taught English at secondary schools were also interviewed to validate the findings and link them to the theoretical framework used. The findings reveal gender inequality is evident in these textbooks

An improved back propagation leaning algorithm using second order methods with gain parameter

Back Propagation (BP) algorithm is one of the oldest learning techniques used by Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). It has successfully been implemented in various practical problems. However, the algorithm still faces some drawbacks such as getting easily stuck at local minima and needs longer time to converge on an acceptable solution. Recently, the introduction of Second Order Methods has shown a significant improvement on the learning in BP but it still has some drawbacks such as slow convergence and complexity. To overcome these limitations, this research proposed a modified approach for BP by introducing the Conjugate Gradient and QuasiNewton which were Second Order methods together with ‘gain’ parameter. The performances of the proposed approach is evaluated in terms of lowest number of epochs, lowest CPU time and highest accuracy on five benchmark classification datasets such as Glass, Horse, 7Bit Parity, Indian Liver Patient and Lung Cancer. The results show that the proposed Second Order methods with ‘gain’ performed better than the BP algorithm

Pendidik kreatif sebagai teras transformasi literasi kreatif di Malaysia

Kreativiti merupakan mauduk dan agenda penting dalam mana-mana orientasi pendidikan di dunia. Institusi pendidikan merupakan tempat terpenting untuk menyuburkan bakat dan kebolehan kreatif pelajar. Hal ini diakui oleh pakar-pakar sains pemikiran kreatif seperti Amabile (1992), Swartz (1989), Buzan (2002), de Bono (1971), Leong (1998) dan ramai yang lain. Amabile (1992) misalnya menyifatkan institusi sekolah merupakan tempat paling penting untuk memupuk alam kreativiti di kalangan kanak-kanak, khususnya dalam konteks prasekolah. Selanjutnya, Cropley (2001), menegaskan bahawa universiti adalah persekitaran yang amat signifikan bagi merealisasikan bakat dan kemahiran kreativiti mahasiswa. Namun begitu, menurut de Bono (19700, tanpa prime mover (dibaca sebagai pendidik) yang menggerakkan persekitaran yang kondusif untuk berkreativiti maka sukar untuk para pelajar untuk berkreasi dengan selesa dan selamat. Sungguhpun begitu, prime mover yang dimaksudkan oleh de Bono itu ialah pendidik yang dibekali dengan pengetahuan dan kemahiran kreativiti. Pendidik yang tidak memiliki kemahiran dan pengetahuan kreativiti sukar untuk merealisasikan suasana, ruang dan pengalaman kreatif dalam pengajaran dan pembelajarannya. Oleh yang demikian, kertas kerja ini akan menghuraikan konsep asas apa yang dimaksudkan sebagai pendidik kreatif. Selanjutnya, kertas kerja ini akan memperjelaskan bagaimana pendidik kreatif ini mampu membawa perubahan ke arah memupuk satu suasana kreativiti dalam pengajaran dan pembelajarannya. Selain itu, kertas kerja ini turut menghuraikan apa yang dikatakan sebagai konsep literasi kreatif dan bagaimana dinamisme literasi kreatif boleh dicapai di Malaysia. Selain itu, kertas kerja ini akan memberikan justifikasi mengapa perlunya literasi kreatif ini diberi perhatian oleh pelbagai pihak khususnya dalam sistem pendidikan Malaysia dan akhirnya apakah kesan literasi kreatif terhadap pembangunan dan masa depan negara dalam dunia globalisasi ini