A Comparative Study of Female Retirement Awareness and Readiness in Malaysia and China

A phenomenon has emerged whereby the life expectancy of women is 74.2 years, and men's is 69.8 years. Hence, it is crucial to encourage early retirement planning among women. This study explores the factors influencing retirement planning awareness and readiness among women in Malaysia and China. 100 Malaysians and 200 Chinese completed a self-administered online questionnaire. Using IBM SPSS and SmartPLS, the determinants examined the moderating effect of self-efficacy toward retirement readiness. This study will provide valuable insights for policymakers to adopt better strategies to address women's issues and improve their quality of life. Keywords: Female Retirement Planning; Comparing Malaysia and China; Gender Equality; Quality of Life eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2023. The Authors. Published for AMER & cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), College of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DO

Ultrashort Near-Infrared Fiber-Optic Sensors for Carbon Dioxide Detection

In this paper, we report a fiber-optic carbon dioxide (CO₂) near-infrared (IR) absorption sensor with only 8-cm sensing length that is coated with nanoporous metalorganic framework material Cu-BTC (BTC = benzene-1,3, 5-tricarboxylate). The multimode optical fiber was etched by hydrofluoric acid to remove the cladding and part of the core, resulting in larger evanescent field to sense the near-IR absorption induced by the adsorbed CO₂. The Cu-BTC thin film with 100 nm thickness was then grown onto the ethced core through a stepwise layer-by-layer method. Our real-time measurement results show that the CO₂ detection limit is better than 500 ppm and the overall response time is 40 s for absorption and 75 s for desorption. To the best of our knowledge, this is the shortest near-IR fiber-optic sensor for CO₂ detection at 1.57-μm wavelength.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and can be found at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=7361 ©2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Keywords: Fiber optic sensor, metal-organic framework, near infrared absorption, gas senso

Simultaneous Softening of sigma and rho Mesons associated with Chiral Restoration

Complex poles of the unitarized pi-pi scattering amplitude in nuclear matter are studied. Partial restoration of chiral symmetry is modeled by the decrease of in-medium pion decay constant f*_{pi}. For large chiral restoration (f*_{pi}/f_{pi} << 1), 2nd sheet poles in the scalar (sigma) and the vector (rho) mesons are both dictated by the Lambert W function and show universal softening as f*_{pi} decreases. In-medium pi-pi cross section receives substantial contribution from the soft mode and exhibits a large enhancement in low-energy region. Fate of this universality for small chiral restoration (f*_{pi}/f_{pi} ~ 1) is also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 4-eps figures, version accepted by Phys. Rev. C (R) with minor modification

Plasmonics-enhanced metal–organic framework nanoporous films for highly sensitive near-infrared absorption

Combined plasmonic nanocrystals and metal–organic framework thin-films are fabricated for sensing gases in the near-infrared range. This nanocomposite thin-film shows a highly sensitive response in near-infrared absorption, which is attributed to preconcentration of gas molecules in metal–organic framework pores causing close proximity to the electromagnetic fields at the plasmonic nanocrystal surface

Genetically Determined Plasma Lipid Levels and Risk of Diabetic Retinopathy: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

Results from observational studies examining dyslipidemia as a risk factor for diabetic retinopathy (DR) have been inconsistent. We evaluated the causal relationship between plasma lipids and DR using a Mendelian randomization approach. We pooled genome-wide association studies summary statistics from 18 studies for two DR phenotypes: any DR (N = 2,969 case and 4,096 control subjects) and severe DR (N = 1,277 case and 3,980 control subjects). Previously identified lipid-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms served as instrumental variables. Meta-analysis to combine the Mendelian randomization estimates from different cohorts was conducted. There was no statistically significant change in odds ratios of having any DR or severe DR for any of the lipid fractions in the primary analysis that used single nucleotide polymorphisms that did not have a pleiotropic effect on another lipid fraction. Similarly, there was no significant association in the Caucasian and Chinese subgroup analyses. This study did not show evidence of a causal role of the four lipid fractions on DR. However, the study had limited power to detect odds ratios less than 1.23 per SD in genetically induced increase in plasma lipid levels, thus we cannot exclude that causal relationships with more modest effect sizes exist

Light-Emitting Devices with Conjugated Polymers

This article introduces a previous study and tremendous progress in basic theoretical modeling, material developments and device engineering for polymer light-emitting devices (PLEDs)

Readiness and Challenges of E-Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: A Space Analysis in Peninsular Malaysia

During the COVID-19 era, most countries, including Malaysia, have shifted from face-to-face teaching systems to online teaching programs. The aim of this study is to identify the main challenges that higher education students face during e-learning based on their residential location throughout Peninsular Malaysia. This study further examines the readiness of higher education students to apply e-learning. Therefore, a cross-sectional survey approach is used to fulfill the outlined objectives. Accordingly, 761 public (95.3%) and private (4.7%) higher education students residing in Peninsular Malaysia are sampled in this study. The survey was administered online for 37 days, from 21 October 21 to 6 December 2021, using either WhatsApp or Facebook. The raw data is inferentially (Principal Component Analysis, K-Means Clustering, Kruskal Wallis, and spatial analysis) and descriptively (mean, standard deviation & percentage) analyzed. It has been revealed that six clusters of students in Peninsular Malaysia face various challenges while following the e-learning program. Most states in Peninsular Malaysia are dominated by students in Cluster D (Terengganu, Perlis, Penang, Selangor, WP Kuala Lumpur, and WP Putrajaya) and Cluster B categories (Melaka, Johor, Kelantan, and Kedah). Students in the Cluster D category tend to suffer from physical health disorders and social isolation, while students in the Cluster B category face problems with a decreased focus on learning, mental health disorders, and social isolation. The outcomes further indicate that the more challenges students face during e-learning programs, the lower their willingness to continue with the program. The results of this study are significant in addressing the challenges of e-learning, which will help stakeholders address and strengthen student abilities

Theoretical study of lepton events in the atmospheric neutrino experiments at SuperK

Super-Kamiokande has reported the results for the lepton events in the atmospheric neutrino experiment. These results have been presented for a 22.5kT water fiducial mass on an exposure of 1489 days, and the events are divided into sub-GeV, multi-GeV and PC events. We present a study of nuclear medium effects in the sub-GeV energy region of atmospheric neutrino events for the quasielastic scattering, incoherent and coherent pion production processes, as they give the most dominant contribution to the lepton events in this energy region. We have used the atmospheric neutrino flux given by Honda et al. These calculations have been done in the local density approximation. We take into account the effect of Pauli blocking, Fermi motion, Coulomb effect, renormalization of weak transition strengths in the nuclear medium in the case of the quasielastic reactions. The inelastic reactions leading to production of leptons along with pions is calculated in a $\Delta$- dominance model by taking into account the renormalization of $\Delta$ properties in the nuclear medium and the final state interaction effects of the outgoing pions with the residual nucleus. We present the results for the lepton events obtained in our model with and without nuclear medium effects, and compare them with the Monte Carlo predictions used in the simulation and the experimentally observed events reported by the Super-Kamiokande collaboration.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figure

Integrated Systems Biology Approach Identifies Novel Maternal and Placental Pathways of Preeclampsia

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