The concept of criminology (bathil) in islamic financial institution practices in Malaysia and islamic Republic of Iran / Ezani Yaakub, Noraini Mohamad and Asmak Husin

In Malaysia, Islamic banking system has been established as an alternative to existing conventional systems. The development of Islamic banking in Malaysia is divided into three stages. In the first stage, Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB), the only Islamic Bank licensed under the Islamic Banking Act; 1983 was incorporated in March 1983. BIMB, like all banks in Malaysia, whether conventional or Islamic, are supervised by Bank Negara Malaysia (Malaysian Central Bank or BNM). The second stage is the introduction of Skim Perbankan Tanpa Faedah (SPTF) or Interest-free Banking Scheme (IFBS) and Islamic Banking Scheme (IBS). These schemes allowed the existing conventional bank to offer Islamic banking as part of their services. It was launched on 4th March 1993. In the third stage, the government has promoted Malaysia as a regional Islamic Financial Centre. Labuan has been declared as an International Offshore Financial Centre (IOFC). In the year 2002, the first Sovereign Global Islamic Sukuk, structured on the principal of Ijarah, amounting to USD600 million was launched. It signifies Malaysia's strong commitment in developing Islamic Banking and finance in the global front. In fact, Malaysia remains the world's leader in Sukuk issuance by both number and value, with 2010 trade totaling about $40bn and in quarter II on 2011 totaling about$31.5.2 However, the development of prevention method of Islamic financial criminology is insufficient. Most of the prevention was done within conventional framework such as cases of Islamic finance solved and heard in civil court which implements conventional system. In addition to that, most of the wrong-doers are non-Muslim and Muslims who have no exposure to Islamic finance due to their educational background. Thus, this research listed out types of prevention method done by Malaysia and compares the methods to I.R I.R of Iran since I.R of Iran implements full-fledge Islamic finance, and has succeeded to become the leader in Islamic finance among all countries in the world

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION COURSE IN A MALAYSIAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: ENGINEERS’ PERSPECTIVES

Communication has become a crucial requirement for all engineers. The global engineering world has created demands on engineers to be able to collaborate on cross-functional teams, manage virtual-project teams and write for multiple complex audiences. This study investigates on the engineering undergraduates’ perceptions about the effectiveness of the Technical Communication course in terms of course content as well as viable suggestions to improve on the course. The instruments that were used for data collection in the study are survey questionnaires and recorded interviews. The findings of the evaluation by the undergraduates reveal that on the overall the effectiveness of the course content is at a moderate level. Thus, this is indicative of the fact that the Technical Communication course needs to be revised in terms of the course content. The respondents have also provided viable solutions to improve on the course. Keywords: technical communication, assessment, course content, teaching material, engineers’ perspectives

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN MALAYSIA: AN ANALYSIS ON ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs WEBSITES DESIGN

Environmental concern has become increasingly integrated into the public domain and mainstream, traditional, and new media. Investigations into the phenomena of environmental communication (EC) using online advocacy are increasingly trans-disciplinary endeavors. My research question focused on how the websites design of the environmental NGOs in Malaysia (ENGOM) can effectively support the sustainability development in Malaysia. The result shows that the majority of the ENGOM websites met the ‘well designed’ requirements. The outcome of this study can especially helps environmental organisations develop the Internet and the web strategies which take into account the issues examined herein, in order to best utilise this medium for their purposes. The usability test was suggested to evaluate the user’s point of view regarding what constitutes an effective and well designed environmental website.Keywords: environmental communication; environmental NGOs, homepage, internet, web design, web page, websit

EFFECT OF E-MAIL USE ON OTHER COMMUNICATION

The Internet has become the nerve of global communication and became a growing popularity and ubiquity of personal computers and Internet services and part of everyday existence at workplace, home and cybercafés environments. This study examines the effect of Internet (confine to E-mail) use as opposed to other communication media among women’s administrative staff in Malaysia and the United Kingdom. The two universities selected in this study are Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (henceforth UTeM), Malaysia and University of Brighton (henceforth UB), United Kingdom. This study is motivated by the desire to explore women’s Internet experiences concerning their use of Internet (E-mail). That is to say, its aim is to investigate effect of E-mail use as opposed to other communication media. The focus of the investigation is the use of E-mail patterns. Data was collected from a semi-structured interview and it was carried out among ten women of who are administrative staffs. The study revealed substantial differences on E-mail use between participants in the two countries. Keywords: internet, e-mail, women, university settings, Malaysia, United Kingdom

Productive practices of Hotel Management System using usability approach: a case study

Hospitality industry encompasses a variety of service industries that include food service, tourism and hotels. Nowadays, hospitality industry has turned to IT as a way to cope with an environment characterized by globalization, competition, high client turnover, and rising guest expectations. Commonly in hotel field, Hotel Management System (HMS) is the main component used to handle the operation of all major tasks such as reservation, room check-in, room check-out and all others monitoring tasks. This work aims to evaluate the usability aspect of HMS and its relation to productive practices. Usability is one of the important attributes for system quality, thus it does affect the business productivity. We focused on the evaluation of six usability attributes which adopted from ISO/IEC 25010 and Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) which are effectiveness, efficiency, affect, helpfulness, control, and learnability. It is limited to five common tasks in HMS that ordinarily perform by the users. There are two stages of usability testing were conducted in this study, which are preliminary usability testing to evaluate the usability of the current HMS, and post survey usability testing on the improve version of the HMS. The improve version of the HMS was develop as a prototype based on the preliminary usability testing result where some usability improvement was adding to the prototype. Based on the study conducted, it is found that the productivity in the hotel operation has potential to be increased by improving the usability of the HMS

The Relationship Between Life Satisfaction, Parenting Style And Risky Behaviors Among Adolescent: Systematic Review

Issues related to adolescent risky behaviors are common in Malaysia. There are many factors that resulted to these phenomena. It can be related to the internal and external factors such as adolescent biological changes, parenting style, adolescent’s life satisfaction, the community of the adolescent being brought up, the culture of the society and so on. The adolescent is a development period where they are in between childhood and adulthood, experiencing changes physically, psychologically and also socially. During this period, adolescent spent more time with their friends, and their emotional re activity increased, which also results in the increases of conflicts with parents. The aims of this study are to evaluate the relationship between students’ life satisfaction, parenting style and risky behaviors among the secondary students around Selangor area. The population size for this research is secondary students. There are three questionnaires being administered to the students at two phases. Problem Oriented Screening Instrument for Teenagers (POSIT) will be administered during the first phase while Parenting Style Inventory-II (PSI-II) and Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfactory Scale (MSLSS) will be administered at the second phase. The present study intends to explore and examine the relationship between life satisfaction, parenting style and risky behaviors among adolescent. This study expected to that the present study results can provide information regarding the parent-adolescent relationship, adolescent life satisfaction during the school day, and the involvement in the risky behavior among adolescent

Comparative analysis on the user-friendliness between computer and tablet application in the performance analysis of soccer

Variety of applications have been developed over the years to serve as the device for performance analysis in soccer. Computer applications have been utilized to analyze player’s performance long before the discovery of tablet applications. However, for the performance analysis to be more accurate and free from human error, the device used for the analysis need to be user-friendly. The aim of this study is to compare the user-friendliness between computer and tablet application in the performance analysis of soccer. Computer and tablet applications were provided to twenty-five performance analysts. They were asked to analyze the performance of players during a soccer match using the two applications differently. Their opinions were collected using a questionnaire for which application was more user–friendly. Chi-square test for goodness of fit was conducted based on the hypothesis that there was no significance difference in their opinion at a confidence level of p ≤ .05. The results shows the analyst differed in their views, (χ² = (1, N = 25) = 9.00, p < .05). The null hypothesis was therefore rejected, and tablet application was found to be user-friendly in the performance analysis of soccer. Tablet application should be more explored in performance analysis of soccer

The effects of compatibility, social influence, and awareness in the adoption of takaful

This paper aims to investigate the effects of compatibility, social influence, and awareness on the adoption of takaful. The research was an empirical investigation based on surveys completed by 210 university staff in Malaysia. Using regression and correlation analysis, the paper found that only awareness is positively related to the adoption of takaful. On the other hand, compatibility and social influence appear to be the significant factors that adversely influence the adoption of takaful. The findings are also useful for takaful managers in effectively managing marketing strategies for takaful products and services

Vocabulary needs of engineering students: a survey

There is substantial amount of technical vocabulary that new engineering students at the tertiary level are required to read and understand in their field of study. Technical vocabulary refers not to a single word but to a group of terms used to explain scientific processes and relations. This means that in the field of engineering, a scientific field, many technical terms are used. These terms may pose some difficulties to the students when reading engineering textbooks, so here seems to be a need to familiarize them with engineering terms to facilitate reading of those textbooks. In order to develop this specialist list of engineering terms, a group of 7 engineering lecturers were interviewed to find out the students’ vocabulary needs through the seven subject matter expert perspectives. In addition, a survey was carried out on a group of 318 engineering students in a tertiary institution. The survey aims to find out the needs of engineering students for a list of introductory engineering terminology. This paper will therefore present the results of the survey