Discriminant Analysis of Animal Species Odor’s Response

The basis of our study is to identify the discriminating groups that are present in the observations as well as looking into the details of the classification of the observation that forms each group. The observations were obtained as a secondary data from a clinical experiment done by Wuensch, K. L in 1992 in his research paper, to identify the effects on the response of the fostered house mice towards species odor. The subjects used are only from the house mice of the species Mus. The nursing mothers selected were only from three species, which are house‑mouse (Mus), deer mouse (Peromyscus) or rat (Rattus). The method used in this study is the discriminant analysis techniques. This study established the discriminant functions based on three groups of cross-forested nursing mothers in identifying the effects of response of the subjects towards the species odor. For new predicted membership, it is found that the largest group is group 3 which is the rat (Rattus) group. The resubstitution of the error rate is 30.6% and the cross validation error rate is 38.9%. Thus, because of the new observation was allocated to group of rat, it shows that the linear discriminant function obtained has been justified with the Discriminant Function Coefficient which showed that Rat-V is the predictor that is most heavily weighted on the first discriminant function.  Mainly, this study can provide a platform and guidelines for other researchers to understand the classification characteristics of fostered animal species in response to species odor. Other than that, it will open other opportunities for other researchers to study discriminating factors of other species for the same objectives.Key words:  Disriminant analysis; Odor; Animal species; Classification; Respons

DETERMINANTS OF NON-REVENUE WATER

Water is one of the most essential needs in human daily life. Water losses or Non-Revenue Water (NRW) refers to the treated water that has been produced from water plant which did not reach to the customer. This waste of water has caused the company to suffer losses and hence, burdens the people with increasing water tariff. Moreover, it becomes one of the challenges for commercial water system management because the water company must fulfil the demand from the society which keep increasing day by day. In addition, the demand for water is increasing, as the population is growing. Despite having the rainfall throughout the year in Malaysia, many cities are experiencing water shortage and frequent water supply disruptions. Therefore, efficient management of water distribution is required to minimise the water losses and to make sure the sustainability of water reserve for a long period. This study focuses on identifying the significant factors that influence the Non-Revenue Water and modelling the data using Multiple Linear Regression Model. The sample size used in this study were 212 observations and the variables involved were Length of Connection, Number of Connection, Production Quantity, Consumption Quantity and Non-Revenue Water. It is found that the variables of Number of Connection, Consumption Quantity and Production Quantity were significant to Non-Revenue Water whereas the variable of Length of Connection was not significant. It is hoped that the result from this study can be used by the water authority company in improving the water distribution and thus reduce water losses and cost

Factors Affecting Parents’ Inclination Towards Private or Public Primary School

Education for children is one of the most concerning issues in the society especially among the parents. Recently, the numbers of private school in Malaysia are increasing rapidly. Despite the abundant of public school, demand for private school are still increasing. Therefore, this study aims to determine the most significant factors that affecting parents’ decision in selecting private primary school for their children. Multistage sampling technique was used to determine the sample of 342 respondents. The factors included in this study were parent’s income, parents’ education level, teaching quality, school facilities and quality of education. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the most significant factor since the dependent variable in this study was a binary categorical variable. It was found that parents with a diploma holder (p-value=0.004), parents with a degree holder (p- alue=0.002), parents’ income (pvalue=0.001), and school facilities (p-value=0.000) were significant factors that influence parents’ decision. In addition, results also found that the most significant factor that affecting parents’ decision towards private primary school was parents with degree holder. It is hoped that this study will guide parents in selecting the best primary school for their children. Moreover, this study also benefits to the government in preparing strategy to develop defensive environment in public schools and to improve parents’ satisfaction towards public primary school

Antimicrobial activity of nigella sativa seed extract

Pathogenic bacterial infections have become a major health problem worldwide. New antimicrobial agents are urgently needed to overcome this problem. In this study, antibacterial activity of Nigella sativa seed extract against some pathogenic bacterial strains (Streptococcus pyogene, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebseilla pneumoniae and Proteus vulgaris) was evaluated. Methanol extract at the concentration of 100 mg/mL had a remarkable sensitivity towards all tested bacteria in this study. Klebseila pneumonia and Proteus vulgaris showed resistance against aqueous extract at 20 mg/mL. Methanol extract of Nigella sativa exhibited significant antibacterial activity at the concentration of 50 mg/mL (p ≤ 0.01) against Streptococcus pyogenes with a greater inhibition zone of 19 mm, while a 15 mm zone of inhibition was observed in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, pneumonia and Proteus vulgaris. Kruskal Wallis analysis showed that both aqueous and methanol extract of black seed exhibited a greater inhibition on Gram positive bacteria (Streptococcus pyogenes) compared with Gram negative bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebseilla pneumoniae and Proteus vulgaris). Our study also showed that species, strains and concentrations of Nigella sativa extract are some of the factors that may influence the sensitivity of the tested bacteria. A significant correlation was observed between zone of inhibition and concentration of extract