Viewpoint by Guest Writers : Halal issues in processed food: Misuse of the Halal logo / Faridah Hj. Hassan and Azlina Hanif.

Professor Dr Faridah Hj Hassan is a professor of Marketing and Strategic Management from Arshad Ayub Graduate Business School, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam. She is a prolific writer and researcher in the areas of Halal food marketing and branding, Islamic tourism and strategic management. Her passion in Halal branding lends her an important role as the Director of iHalal Management and Science, FBM, UiTM. Dr Azlina Hanif is a senior lecturer of Economics from Arshad Ayub Graduate Business School, Universiti Teknologi MARA. Her research interest is in the areas of International Trade and Islamic Economics. She is currently doing research on the research performance of universities in South East Asia under the ERASMUS+ program

Students' need recognition for higher education at private colleges in Malaysia : an exploratory perspective

The objective of this study is to ascertain the influence of internal and external environmental and marketing stimuli on students? need recognition to study at private colleges in Malaysia. Eight hundred and eighty eight students who were enrolled in 72 multi-disciplined private colleges participated in this study. A two-part questionnaire comprising selected background data, and internal and external stimuli promoting students? need recognition was used. Internal stimuli comprised an individual?s past experience, characteristics and motive. External environmental stimuli encompassed family, reference group and social class; while external marketing stimuli include the quality of programs, promotion, pricing, distribution, lecturers, processes and physical resources. The results indicate that external marketing stimuli have the highest influence on students? need recognition (lecturer?s quality ? 76%; program quality ? 74% and quality of physical resources ? 73%), followed by external environmental stimuli (family ? 70%), and internal stimuli ? 65%. These findings will enable private colleges to formulate effective marketing strategies emphasising students? need recognition and family influence, which will allow them to maintain a sustainable competitive edge over their competitors in this dynamic and highly competitive industry

Islamic working environment, organizational commitment and employee’s job satisfaction and performance in service industry in Malaysia: a conceptual paper / Muhamad Izzuddin Zainudin … [et al.]

This study investigates the role of organizational commitment as a mediator between the Islamic work environment and the employee’s job satisfaction and performance. The study was conducted through the review of previous literature on the variables. It was discovered that previous studies did not include Islamic values as part of their workplace environment framework and only investigate the effect of organizational commitment as the result instead of moderating variable. Thus, a new conceptual model is proposed which will include the Islamic workplace environment as the independent variable, job satisfaction and performance as the dependent variable and organizational commitment as the moderating variable. The model is expected to provide a better understanding to the organization, especially Multinational Corporations (MNC) in understanding the importance of providing Islamic workplace environment for their employees

Dose mapping in Cesium-137 blood irradiator using novel Ge-doped silica optical fibres in comparison with gafchromic EBT-XD film: A preliminary study

The purpose of dose-mapping in blood irradiation is to ensure radiation dose delivered to the blood bags is within the specified limits of minimum 15 Gy and maximum 50 Gy, thus preventing any blood transfusion-related diseases. In the present study, we investigated the feasibility of novel fabricated germanium-doped (Ge-doped) silica-based optical fibre as a potential passive dosimeter for dose-mapping of a Cesium-137 (Cs-137) gamma blood irradiator. The calibration curve of optical fibres and Gafchromic EBT-XD film was established by irradiating the samples in the dose range from 5 to 35 Gy at the central of a water-equivalent phantom in a dedicated blood irradiator machine. For dose mapping, the fabricated optical fibres and EBT-XD film were irradiated for a gamma exposure of 8 min and 56 s to deliver a central dose of 25 Gy. Thermoluminescence measurements were performed using a Harshaw 3500 TLD reader at a maximum acquisition temperature of 400 °C. The results of optical fibres were compared with EBT-XD film. The absorbed dose obtained from optical fibres shows deviation of within 0.1%–10.4% compared to that of dose of the film. The fabricated optical fibre studied in this work have a good potential as a new passive dosimeter for characterisation and dose mapping of gamma blood irradiator due to its high sensitivity and reproducible characteristics