Nexus between Oil Price and Stock Performance of Power Industry in Malaysia

This paper examines the reaction of KLCI and five major power sector stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia to the changes in the world spot oil price using cointegration technique and impulse response analysis. Results indicate the existence of a long run positive relationship of world spot oil price with the stock returns of KLCI, TENAGA, TANJONG and YTLP. The impulse response analysis further shows that, in most of the cases, the oil price shock has only an impact on the short time horizon. As Malaysia is a net oil exporting country practicing oil and gas subsidization, the oil price shocks lead to the wealth transfer effect from oil importing to oil exporting countries, thus, confer a positive impact on the stock market.Stock market; Power industry; Oil price

Cerebrovascular influence on brain and cognitive aging

A dysfunctional cerebrovascular system can result in severe adverse effects on brain health and cognitive aging. Recently, Fabiani et al., (2014) introduced a novel non-invasive approach of quantifying cerebrovascular health using diffuse optical imaging in a sample of older adults. This method is based on the estimation of the arterial pulse across the whole scalp. From these estimates, three indices reflecting arterial health can be extracted: pulse amplitude, arterial compliance and pulse transit time. In their initial paper, Fabiani et al. (2014) showed that, in older adults, these indices are correlated with important variables, including volumetric changes in the brain and in psychometric measures. In this thesis, Chapter 1 discusses the importance of cerebrovascular health in brain and cognitive aging followed by a brief introduction to diffusive optical methods and its advantages in quantifying cerebrovascular health. Chapter 2 contains a series of two experiments examining how changes in pulse amplitude reflect changes in cerebrovascular tone (i.e. vasodilation and vasoconstriction) of cerebral blood vessels. We used both a physiological voluntary breath holding task to track generalized changes and a cognitive Sternberg task to track localized changes in cerebrovascular tone. Further, we found that an index of cerebrovascular reactivity derived from the breath holding task was associated with age and cognitive functioning. These results indicate that cerebral pulse amplitude works well as a proxy measure of blood pressure in the brain. Chapter 3 contains a replication and extension of the work presented in Fabiani et al., (2014) to investigate changes in pulse amplitude and arterial compliance in a group of younger and older adults. The study also contains methodological improvements whereby we employed a denser optical recording array and increased data collection time substantially in order improve signal to noise ratio. The results indicate strong reliability for both pulse amplitude and arterial compliance measures. We replicated the initial findings, demonstrating that associations with age, cardiorespiratory fitness, brain anatomy and cognition can also be found across the adult lifespan. Further, we found new evidence supporting the value of regional arterial compliance in predicting working memory performance on the operation word span (OSPAN) task. Chapter 4 contains a study investigating the relationships of arterial compliance with measures of cerebral white matter lesion (manifested as white matter signal abnormalities (WMSA) on T1 weighted images) and white matter microstructure integrity (measured using DTI indices of fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity). Using hierarchical regression, we found that arterial compliance predicts variance in WMSA over and above age and systemic pulse pressure (difference between systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure), indicating that brain measures of arterial compliance have added predictive utility of WMSA volume over systemic measures of vascular health. Mediation analyses revealed that the relationship between greater age and poorer fluid intelligence (IQ) was mediated sequentially by a reduction in arterial compliance and greater WMSA volume. Additional mediation analyses involving switching the temporal sequence of arterial compliance and WMSA was not statistically significant. Further, substituting WMSA for DTI measures of FA and MD in the mediation analysis also did not reach statistical significance. These results suggest that the cerebrovascular pathway involved in age-related cognitive decline in fluid IQ are mediated primarily through arterial compliance and WMSA, but not changes in white matter microstructure measured by DTI. Tentative findings suggest that vascular damage manifested as poorer arterial compliance and WMSA volume, may converge with degradation to white matter microstructure in the fornix

Effects of different wall materials on the physicochemical properties and oxidative stability of spray-dried microencapsulated red-fleshed Pitaya (Hylocereus polyrhizus) seed oil.

The aim of this research was to investigate the influence of the composition of the wall material on the encapsulation and stability of microencapsulated red-fleshed pitaya seed oil. Hylocereus polyrhizus seed oil was homogenized with various wall material solutions at a core/wall material ratio of 0.33 and was microencapsulated by spray-drying. The microstructure and morphology of pitaya seed oil powder (PSOP) were observed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). PSOP encapsulated with gum Arabic exhibited a lower degree of microencapsulation efficiency (MEE; 77.61–85.3%) compared to PSOP encapsulated with proteinaceous bases (90.12–98.06%). The study on oil retention revealed that sodium caseinate > whey protein > gum Arabic as effective wall materials for pitaya seed oil encapsulation. The effects of different wall systems on the oxidation stability of PSOP were studied under accelerated storage conditions; the peroxide value (POV) was determined throughout the test interval at several storage times. This study indicates that the use of lactose as wall material is able to increase the oxidation stability of PSOP; however, further research is needed to evaluate its antioxidative retention toward the oxidative stability of PSOP

Chemical composition and DSC thermal properties of two species of Hylocereus cacti seed oil: hylocereus undatus and Hylocereus polyrhizus.

Two types of pitaya (Hylocereus cacti) seeds (Hylocereus undatus and Hylocereus polyrhizus) were investigated in this study. The fatty acid, phenolic, tocopherol, and sterol contents of the extracted seed oil were analysed. The results showed that the pitaya seeds contained a high amount of oil (18.33–28.37%). The three major fatty acids in the H. undatus seed oil (WFSO) and H. polyrhizus seed oil (RFSO) were linoleic, oleic, and palmitic acids. The total tocopherol contents in the WFSO and RFSO were 36.70 and 43.50 mg/100 g, respectively. The phytosterol compounds identified in the WFSO and RFSO were cholesterol, campesterol, stigmasterol, and β-sitosterol. Seven phenolic acid compounds were identified in the WFSO and RFSO, namely, gallic, vanillic, syringic, protocatechuic, p-hydroxybenzoic, p-coumaric, and caffeic acids. WFSO and RFSO can be differentiated by their Toff and Ton values in the DSC thermal curves. This study reveals that pitaya seed oil has a high level of functional lipids and can be used as a new source of essential oil

Green Synthesis of Magnetite Nanoparticles (via Thermal Decomposition Method) with Controllable Size and Shape

Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles with controllable size and shape were synthesized by the thermal decomposition method. In contrast to previously reported thermal decomposition methods, our synthesis method had utilized a much cheaper and less toxic iron precursor, iron acetylacetonate (Fe(acac)3), and environmentally benign and non-toxic polyethylene oxide (PEO) was being used as the solvent and surfactant simultaneously. Fe3O4 nanoparticles of controllable size and shape were prepared by manipulating the synthesis parameters such as precursor concentrations, reaction durations and surfactants

Budget-current account deficits nexus in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to contribute further on the twin deficits debate in a developing economy. The data for Malaysia over four decades is used as a case study. Empirical result obtained from the Johansen-Juselius (1990) cointegration test indicates that budget deficit and current account deficit do not contain common stochastic trend in the long run. However, the findings from the Granger non-causality test by Toda-Yamamoto (1995) support the Summer’s (1988) reverse causation proposition. This implies that a unidirectional causality running from current account to budgetary variable where the deterioration in current account deficit could worsen the budgetary position in the case of Malaysia

Oscillation Control Algorithms for Resonant Sensors with Applications to Vibratory Gyroscopes

We present two oscillation control algorithms for resonant sensors such as vibratory gyroscopes. One control algorithm tracks the resonant frequency of the resonator and the other algorithm tunes it to the specified resonant frequency by altering the resonator dynamics. Both algorithms maintain the specified amplitude of oscillations. The stability of each of the control systems is analyzed using the averaging method, and quantitative guidelines are given for selecting the control gains needed to achieve stability. The effects of displacement measurement noise on the accuracy of tracking and estimation of the resonant frequency are also analyzed. The proposed control algorithms are applied to two important problems in a vibratory gyroscope. The first is the leading-following resonator problem in the drive axis of MEMS dual-mass vibratory gyroscope where there is no mechanical linkage between the two proof-masses and the second is the on-line modal frequency matching problem in a general vibratory gyroscope. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control algorithms are effective. They ensure the proof-masses to oscillate in an anti-phase manner with the same resonant frequency and oscillation amplitude in a dual-mass gyroscope, and two modal frequencies to match in a general vibratory gyroscope

Selection and validation of emotional videos: Dataset of professional and amateur videos that elicit basic emotions

This article describes the process of selecting a collection of professional and amateur videos that elicit five basic emotions (i.e., happiness, fear, disgust, anger, and sadness) and validating these videos in three groups of participants (i.e., Chinese from China, Chinese from Malaysia, and Bumiputera from Malaysia). In the video selection phase, professional videos, which were Western movie trailers, were selected from IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and amateur videos were selected from YouTube. The researchers selected videos that display five basic emotions, identified the time frames with the strongest display of emotion, and rated the emotional intensity of each video on a 5-point Likert scale. After the initial stage of selection, two other researchers performed an emotion recognition task by watching the videos without audio to ensure that the emotions can be elicited without understanding the language. This data was used to refine the final selection of 20 professional videos and 20 amateur videos. In the video validation phase, 30 participants were asked to identify and rate the intensity of emotion felt. This article includes a description of the video selection method, a detailed list of the videos selected, and participants' responses and ratings of emotional intensity for the 40 videos

Nexus between Oil Price and Stock Performance of Power Industry in Malaysia

This paper examines the reaction of KLCI and five major power sector stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia to the changes in the world spot oil price using cointegration technique and impulse response analysis. Results indicate the existence of a long run positive relationship of world spot oil price with the stock returns of KLCI, TENAGA, TANJONG and YTLP. The impulse response analysis further shows that, in most of the cases, the oil price shock has only an impact on the short time horizon. As Malaysia is a net oil exporting country practicing oil and gas subsidization, the oil price shocks lead to the wealth transfer effect from oil importing to oil exporting countries, thus, confer a positive impact on the stock market

Carbon nanotube bumps for the flip chip packaging system

Carbon nanotube [CNT] interconnection bump joining methodology has been successfully demonstrated using flip chip test structures with bump pitches smaller than 150 μm. In this study, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition approach is used to grow the CNT bumps onto the Au metallization lines. The CNT bumps on the die substrate are then 'inserted' into the CNT bumps on the carrier substrate to form the electrical connections (interconnection bumps) between each other. The mechanical strength and the concept of reworkable capabilities of the CNT interconnection bumps are investigated. Preliminary electrical characteristics show a linear relationship between current and voltage, suggesting that ohmic contacts are attained