Factors Influence Intention to Opt for Islamic Investment Schemes Among Market Players

Employing theory of reasoned action with religiosity as its additional construct in the model, this paper is aimed at examining factors influence the intention of investors to opt Islamic investment schemes in Malaysia Islamic capital markets. As many as 120 questionnaires were collected from market players in Bursa Malaysia using online survey. Afterwards, the data collected were analyzed using structural equation model to reveal the relationship of variables tested in the proposed model. The result shows that religiosity and subjective norms appeared to be the significant factors affecting intention to choose Islamic investment schemes in Malaysia Islamic capital markets. Interestingly, despite its significant role shown in previous studies, this study has shown insignificant level of the attitude in predicting the intention behavior. The managerial implications are discussed in this paper

A review of analysis the system of thermal power plant economics

Power plants are part of the infrastructure of modern society, and it is needed that these power plant facilities be constructed effectively to achieve a sophisticated level of reliability. The major economic factor in power system planning, operation, and control are with the expenses of generating real power. The analysis of general power plant economic determined the possibility to fulfil the need and optimized the power generation thus lowering the cost operation for the thermal power plant system. Several factors are essential to be considered to build a thermal power plant based on the factor discussed in this study. This study also includes maximizing and eliminating the thermal power plant losses and implements good power plant economic

Evaluating the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Healthcare Workers Regarding High-Risk Nosocomial Infections: A Global Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers (HCWs) play a vital role in delivering care and are frequently exposed to the risk of acquiring infections within the hospital setting. Around 15% of hospitalized patients suffer from these infections globally. However, the role and awareness of HCWs in the transmission of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) or nosocomial infections is still unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) toward high-risk microbial infections among HCWs on a global scale to identify measures to address this problem. METHOD: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted between 2022 and 2023, with HCWs selected as the study population. Data concerning KAP were collected through a self-administered online survey questionnaire, using a nonprobability convenience sampling method. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: A total of 743 HCWs from various countries participated in the study, with the majority of respondents being doctors (64.9%). Data were mainly obtained from Saudi Arabia (26.78%), Iraq (25.84%), India (15.7%), the United States of America (15.2%), and Africa (Sudan, Nigeria) (13.98%). The frequency of good KAP scores among physicians (KAP: 82.5, 80.66, and 70.5), nurses (KAP: 74.1, 73.07, and 88.7), medical practitioners (KAP: 87.2, 77.58, and 75.1), and technicians (KAP: 76.1, 74.38, and 89.6) were obtained as mentioned. With respect to experience, HCWs showed good KAP scores in 1-5 years (KAP: 82.4, 83.3, and 74.1), 5-10 years (KAP: 80.6, 74.54, 83), 10-20 years (KAP: 74.7, 79.1, and 82.7), and \u3e20 years (KAP: 84.6, 78.8, and 82.8) categories. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that HCWs have good KAP regarding infection prevention, but there is still room for improvement. Educational seminars and awareness programs can provide better adherence to barrier protection measures such as hand washing, use of gloves, and hand disinfection

A Framework For Chili Fruits Maturity Estimation Using Deep Convolutional Neural Network

An agriculture robot has been demanded in recent years. Inaccurate in estimating the maturity of the chili always happens since the human eyes are tend to prone to errors. Serving an effective, innovative, feasible chili recognition system would help farmers as economical alternative by reducing the workloads while increasing fruit yield. Hence, a comprehensive framework of chili maturity estimation using deep learning is carried out

Cytotoxicity and apoptosis effects of curcumin analogue (2E,6E)-2,6-Bis(2,3-Dimethoxybenzylidine) cyclohexanone (DMCH) on human colon cancer cells HT29 and SW620 in vitro

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common type of cancer worldwide and a leading cause of cancer death. According to the Malaysian National Cancer Registry Report 2012-2016, colorectal cancer was the second most common cancer in Malaysia after breast cancer. Recent treatments for colon cancer cases have caused side effects and recurrence in patients. One of the alternative ways to fight cancer is by using natural products. Curcumin is a compound of the rhizomes of Curcuma longa that possesses a broad range of pharmacological activities. Curcumin has been studied for decades but due to its low bioavailability, its usage as a therapeutic agent has been compromised. This has led to the development of a chemically synthesized curcuminoid analogue, (2E,6E)-2,6-bis(2,3-dimethoxybenzylidine) cyclohexanone (DMCH), to overcome the drawbacks. This study aims to examine the potential of DMCH for cytotoxicity, apoptosis induction, and activation of apoptosis-related proteins on the colon cancer cell lines HT29 and SW620. The cytotoxic activity of DMCH was evaluated using the [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] (MTT) cell viability assay on both of the cell lines, HT29 and SW620. To determine the mode of cell death, an acridine orange/propidium iodide (AO/PI) assay was conducted, followed by Annexin V/FITC, cell cycle analysis, and JC-1 assay using a flow cytometer. A proteome profiler angiogenesis assay was conducted to determine the protein expression. The inhibitory concentration (IC50) of DMCH in SW620 and HT29 was 7.50 ± 1.19 and 9.80 ± 0.55 µg/mL, respectively. The treated cells displayed morphological features characteristic of apoptosis. The flow cytometry analysis confirmed that DMCH induced apoptosis as shown by an increase in the sub-G0/G1 population and an increase in the early apoptosis and late apoptosis populations compared with untreated cells. A higher number of apoptotic cells were observed on treated SW620 cells as compared to HT29 cells. Human apoptosis proteome profiler analysis revealed upregulation of Bax and Bad proteins and downregulation of Livin proteins in both the HT29 and SW620 cell lines. Collectively, DMCH induced cell death via apoptosis, and the effect was more pronounced on SW620 metastatic colon cancer cells, suggesting its potential effects as an antimetastatic agent targeting colon cancer cells

Local authorities challenges in the implementation of maintenance and operation blueprint

Maintenance and Operation Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia was established to ensure local authority immovable asset maintenance management is in line with Government Asset Management Policy 2009. This paper deals with investigation on the challenges in the implementation of Maintenance and Operation Blueprint Plan for Iskandar Malaysia among five local authorities in Iskandar Malaysia. A total of 25 respondents have been selected and interviewed. The data have been analyzed qualitatively. Base on the interview, the results show that there are challenges to implement maintenance and operation blueprint in local authority immovable asset maintenance management which are no clear direction from the top management to implement the Maintenance and Operation Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia, lack of staff to implement the Maintenance and Operation Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia, did not have enough time to implement the Maintenance and Operation Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia and the high cost required to implement the Maintenance and Operation Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia. This article can serve as a foundation for future studies in critical success factors to implement immovable asset maintenance and operation blueprint. A future study investigating critical success factors to implement immovable asset maintenance and operation blueprint would be very interesting to produce a new approach for successful blueprint implementation

Treated Rhizophora mucronata tannin as a corrosion inhibitor in chloride solution

Treated Rhizopora mucronata tannin (RMT) as a corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel and copper in oil and gas facilities was investigated. Corrosion rate of carbon-steel and copper in 3wt% NaCl solution by RMT was studied using chemical (weight loss method) and spectroscopic (FTIR) techniques at various temperatures in the ranges of 26–90C. The weight loss data was compared to the electrochemical by the application of Faraday’s law for the conversion of corrosion rate data from one system to another. The inhibitive efficiency of RMT was compared with commercial inhibitor sodium benzotriazole (BTA-S). The best concentration of RMT was 20% (w/v), increase in concentration of RMT decreased the corrosion rate and increased the inhibitive efficiency. Increase in temperature increased the corrosion rate and decreased the inhibitive efficiency but, the rate of corrosion was mild with RMT. The FTIR result shows the presence of hydroxyl group, aromatic group, esters and the substituted benzene group indicating the purity of the tannin. The trend of RMT was similar to that of BTA-S, but its inhibitive efficiency for carbon-steel was poor (6%) compared to RMT (59%). BTA-S was efficient for copper (76%) compared to RMT (74%) at 40% (w/v) and 20% (w/v) concentration respectively. RMT was efficient even at low concentration therefore, the use of RMT as a cost effective and environmentally friendly corrosion inhibiting agent for carbon steel and copper is herein proposed

Isoprene hotspots at the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula during MASEC′16

Isoprene (C5H8) plays an important role in the formation of surface ozone (O3) and the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) which contributed to the climate change. This study aims to determine hourly distribution of tropospheric isoprene over the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula (WCAP) during the Malaysian Antarctic Scientific Expedition Cruise 2016 (MASEC′16). In-situ measurements of isoprene were taken using a custom-built gas chromatography with photoionization detector, known as iDirac. Biological parameters such as chlorophyll a (chl-a) and particulate organic carbon (POC) were compared to the in-situ isoprene measurements. Significant positive correlation was observed between isoprene and POC concentrations (r2 = 0.67, p < 0.001), but not between isoprene and chl-a. The hotspots of isoprene over maritime Antarctic were then were investigated using NAME dispersion model reanalysis. Measurements showed that isoprene mixing ratio were the highest over region of King George Island, Deception Island and Booth Island with values of ∼5.0, ∼0.9 and ∼5.2 ppb, respectively. Backward trajectory analysis showed that air masses may have lifted the isoprene emitted by marine algae. We believe our findings provide valuable data set of isoprene estimation over the under sampled WCAP