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

Multiple driving forces of paddy land conversion: a lesson from Malaysia’s rice bowl state

Land is an important but finite natural resource, crucial for numerous human activities such as for settlement, transportation, forestry, agriculture, animal husbandry, industry and recreation. Land can be seen as parallel to economic growth. With a rapid growth in development and urbanisation, there is an increase need for land and for that paddy land face with the paradox of allocation for agricultural and non-agricultural sector. The allocation of land for optimal agricultural use has become a paramount issue. This paper tries to analyse the revolution of paddy land in Kedah, what drives the conversion that resulted it, so that preservation mechanism on paddy land can be outlined in the future

A conceptual model of information technology innovation implementation effectiveness in higher education

Research on innovation in organizations has mainly focused on adoption phase as compared to implementation phase of innovation. Implementation is the critical gateway between the decision to adopt an innovation and the routine use of the innovation. In the case of IT innovation, while the development of IT innovation is relatively controllable, the actual implementation of IT is far more difficult to control as it involves complex interactions between people, technology and environment. Often times there is resistance in using the new technology and in many circumstances, the organization has to face IT implementation failure. In the context of higher education, there has been major transformation occurring in the formal education sector partly due to the development of IT innovation, as well as the form of networking, knowledge sharing and interactive learning that IT facilitate. Nevertheless, many universities are facing a lot of challenges in implementing IT innovation successfully. Although there have been some researches on the implementation of innovations in general, very few studies explored IT innovation implementation in the context of higher education. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for evaluating IT innovation implementation in higher educational institutions (HEIs), particularly in the developing countries. The proposed model was derived from the general innovation models, but was adapted to suit the HEIs context

A Data-driven Prognostic Model for Industrial Equipment using Time Series Prediction Methods

Condition-based maintenance strategy is considered popular and received high demand in industry to ensure high availability and reliability of equipment in the plant. Prognostic is one of an important functions in condition-based maintenance strategy which is used to predict the future condition of the observed and estimate the remaining useful lifetime (RUL) based on the current and historical condition data. Due to the fact that most of the current automated equipment in industry has the capability to capture and store the condition and process data during operation, the research aimed to formulate a prognostic model based on the integration of the data and predict the series of future condition. This paper presents a data-driven prognostic model to predict the estimated RUL by using condition and process data which are taken from a single unit of equipment. The structure of prognostic model is presented and two time series methods are employed namely Artifical Neural Network and Double Exponential Smoothing in prognostic process. The feasibility of this prognostic model was demonstrated with applying real data from industrial equipment. The result from the model shows that both of the methods are able to extrapolate the extimated  RUL  and  give  useful  information to the maintenance department to take an appropriate decision

Modelling of extended de-weight fuzzy control for an upper-limb exoskeleton

Performing heavy physical tasks, overhead work and long working hours are some examples of activities that can lead to musculoskeletal problems in humans. To overcome this issue, automated robots such as the upper-limb exoskeleton is used to assist humans while performing tasks. However, several concerns in developing the exoskeleton have been raised such as the control strategies used. In this study, a control strategy known as the extended de-weight fuzz was proposed to ensure that the exoskeleton could be maneuvered to the desired position with the least number of errors and minimum torque requirement. The extended de-weight fuzzy is a combination of the fuzzy-based PD and fuzzy-based de-weight controller systems. The extended de-weight fuzzy was then compared with the fuzzy-based PD and PID controllers, and the performances of these controllers were compared in terms of their deviations and required torques to perform tasks. The findings show that the proposed control strategy performs better than the fuzzy-based PD and PID controller systems

The effectiveness of palm oil fuel ash in preventing expansion due to alkali-silica reaction

Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of palm oil fuel ash (POFA), a recently identified pozzolanic material, in reducing the e.xpansion of mortar bars containing Tuff as a reactive aggregate where ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was replaced, mass for mass, by 0, 10, 30 and 50% POFA. The South Ajiican NBRI Accelerated Test method was used in the experimental investigation, which revealed that palm oil fuel ash has a good potential in suppressing expansion due to alkali-silica reaction

Squeezed coherent states and the one-dimensional Morse quantum system

The Morse potential one-dimensional quantum system is a realistic model for studying vibrations of atoms in a diatomic molecule. This system is very close to the harmonic oscillator one. We thus propose a construction of squeezed coherent states similar to the one of harmonic oscillator using ladder operators. Properties of these states are analysed with respect to the localization in position, minimal Heisenberg uncertainty relation, the statistical properties and illustrated with examples using the finite number of states in a well-known diatomic molecule.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. $\bullet$Revised section 4, results unchanged. Correction of formulas 35 and 37. Results unchanged because all variables are real numbers. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1010.327

Coordinated Generation and Transmission Maintenance Scheduling Considering Network Constraints via GGDF and ODF

This paper proposes a coordinated generation and transmission maintenance scheduling by incorporating network constraints. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that maintenance is scheduled at the optimal period of the lowest possible operating cost while satisfying all the specified constraints. In this approach, sensitivity factors (GGDFs and ODFs) which are based on DC approximation are applied to calculate the line flows in normal and maintenance conditions. They are applied due to their simplicity, linearity, physical comprehension and rapidity of computation. To simulate the effect of network constraint on maintenance schedule and operating cost, several cases are studied with and without transmission limit constraints. To ensure the accuracy of these sensitivity factors, power flows on each line are compared with the one obtained from a PSSE simulator. The result shows that generators and transmission lines are scheduled at periods that satisfy the transmission capacity limit