Job performance and mediating role of employee retention in private Institutions of Higher Education

Higher education is no longer an option but a necessity. Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in Malaysia is a destination for both local and international students, in which the focus is on creation on knowledge workers for the country. The number of PHEIs and student enrolment increases yearly as spaces in the public universities are scarce. For quality assurance, high staff turnover has always been a concern in PHEIs. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore the factors affecting job performance and the mediating effect of employee engagement for both academic and non-academic staff. A quantitative, self-administered questionnaire was used in this research. 200 respondents from the top ten PHEIs participated in this study. Career development, employee engagement, work-life balance and employee retention were found to have significant relationship with job performance. Hierarchical re- gression analysis proves that employee retention fully mediates the relationship between career development and job performance, as well as work-life balance and job performance. However, there is no mediation effect of employee retention on employee engagement and job performance

Characterization of Pneumatic Artificial Muscle System in an Opposing Pair Configuration

Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) is a pneumatic actuator that commonly used in the biomimetic robotic devices in rehabilitation applications due to its advantageous in high powerto-weight ratio and high degree of safety in use characteristics. Several techniques exist in the literature for the PAM system modeling, and these include theoretical modeling, phenomenological modeling and empirical modeling. This paper focuses on explaining the experimental setup of an opposing pair configuration of PAM system, and gives an analysis of the pneumatic muscle system dynamic in the theoretical modeling. The simulated dynamic model is compared with the actual PAM system for the validation in the open-loop step and sinusoidal positioning responses and pressures. It is concluded that the simulation result is verified and agreed with the actual system

Proteome-wide profiling of the MCF10AT breast cancer progression model

10.1371/journal.pone.0011030PLoS ONE56

Investigation of ferrofluid cooling in modular permanent magnet machines

Compared with conventional non-modular machines, the flux gaps in alternate stator teeth of the modular machines can increase the winding factor and provide flux focusing effect, and hence can increase the torque/power density. In addition, the flux gaps can also be used as cooling channels to improve the thermal performance. This paper investigates an advanced cooling approach using ferrofluid as coolant to fill in the cavity around end-windings and flux gaps. The multiphysics modelling in this paper has shown that the influence of the flux gaps on machine thermal performances comes from two aspects: (1) the gravitational effect, the flux gaps allow more self-circulating coolant to transfer heat to the housing. This helps to reduce machine temperature by around 5°C for a flux gap width of 2mm; (2) the magnetic body force, i.e., the thermomagnetic effect. This is very effective in non-modular machine cooling. But its efficiency slightly deteriorates in the modular machines. This is because the self-circulation of ferrofluid in the flux gaps due to the gravitational effect has been negatively affected by the thermomagnetic effect

Cytokine and Chemokine Profiling in Patients with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in Singapore and Malaysia

Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a prevalent contagious childhood disease typically associated with fever, oral lesions and limb exanthema. While HFMD is caused by a plethora of serotypes of viruses under the genus Enterovirus within the Picornaviridae family, Coxsackievirus A16 (CV-A16) and Enterovirus 71 (EV-A71) are considered the main etiological agents. In recent years however, other viruses have also been isolated in considerable numbers from infected individuals in many regions, joining the legion commonly associated with HFMD. The present study investigated the cytokine and chemokine profiles of HFMD patients from Singapore and Malaysia for the first time. Comparative cohort studies of EV-A71-associated HFMD cases revealed that the Malaysia cohort had a distinct profile from the Singapore cohort, and this could be partly attributed by different EV-A71 genotypes. As the isolation of CV-A6, instead of CV-A16, had become prevalent in the Singapore cohort, it was also of particular interest to study the differential cytokine and chemokine profiles. Our data revealed that overlapping as well as unique profiles exist between the two major causative clinical isolates in the Singapore cohort. Having a better understanding of the respective immunological profiles could be useful for more accurate HFMD diagnosis, which is imperative for disease transmission control until multi-valent vaccines and/or broad-spectrum anti-viral drugs become available

The phenotype of Floating-Harbor syndrome: Clinical characterization of 52 individuals with mutations in exon 34 of SRCAP

Background: Floating-Harbor syndrome (FHS) is a rare condition characterized by short stature, delays in expressive language, and a distinctive facial appearance. Recently, heterozygous truncating mutations in SRCAP were determined to be disease-causing. With the availability of a DNA based confirmatory test, we set forth to define the clinical features of this syndrome. Methods and results. Clinical information on fifty-two individuals with SRCAP mutations was collected using standardized questionnaires. Twenty-four males and twenty-eight females were studied with ages ranging from

Trans-ancestry genome-wide association study identifies 12 genetic loci influencing blood pressure and implicates a role for DNA methylation

We carried out a trans-ancestry genome-wide association and replication study of blood pressure phenotypes among up to 320,251 individuals of East Asian, European and South Asian ancestry. We find genetic variants at 12 new loci to be associated with blood pressure (P = 3.9 × 10-11 to 5.0 × 10-21). The sentinel blood pressure SNPs are enriched for association with DNA methylation at multiple nearby CpG sites, suggesting that, at some of the loci identified, DNA methylation may lie on the regulatory pathway linking sequence variation to blood pressure. The sentinel SNPs at the 12 new loci point to genes involved in vascular smooth muscle (IGFBP3, KCNK3, PDE3A and PRDM6) and renal (ARHGAP24, OSR1, SLC22A7 and TBX2) function. The new and known genetic variants predict increased left ventricular mass, circulating levels of NT-proBNP, and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality (P = 0.04 to 8.6 × 10-6). Our results provide new evidence for the role of DNA methylation in blood pressure regulation

Videotex developments in the Asia‐Pacific: Some policy and marketing issues

10.1080/01292989409359604Asian Journal of Communication4277-9

On the possibility of high density data storage based on modulation-doped electron trapping materials

Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Part 2: Letters368 PART AL1009-L1011JAPL