Qualified audit reports of local authorities in the northern states of Malaysia

The reliability of information presented in the financial reports of local authorities is of utmost importance to enable the public to measure their performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in using public resources. The task to provide such an assurance lies with the Auditor General, who has been entrusted to enforce the auditing compliance regulations. A certificate in the form of “unqualified,” “qualified,” “adverse,” or “disclaimer” accompanied by a report on the financial affairs of the local authorities concerned will be issued after the Auditor General completes the audit of the local authorities’ financial statements. Our study on 14 local authorities comprising municipal and district councils in the Malaysian States of Perlis, Kedah and Penang found that the Qualified Certificate is the common type of audit certificate issued to the local authorities concerned during the period 1997-2001(inclusive of both years). Discrepancies in “Fixed Assets Register” ranked first among the audit incidents that led towards non-compliance to the audit procedures. This was followed by discrepancies in “Other Receivables” and “Cash Flow Statements” which ranked second and third positions respectively. Our finding also shows that size does not grant any advantage to the bigger local authority in reducing the number of audit incidents

Public complaints: An instrument to improve services in public institution of higher learning in post modern era. Case study: Student Affairs Department in Universiti Utara Malaysia

Jurgen Habermas dan Anthony Giddens are among other postmodern thinkers have proposed the theory of public sphere and social reflexivity. Because postmodenism has undermined the structure and function of the society and gives extra power to the periphery and individuals, the rise for individual participation in voicing out their need and wants is seen as important so that decision made at the top rung of the society reflect the masses. According to Habermas, in post modern era where tradition is lacking, people are losing trust and confidence in an abstract system – the system governing them beyond their immediate surrounding. To encounter it, citizen should be given power to participate in decision making. Habermas idea is supported by Giddens with his social reflexivity concept that suggests inputting public trust back into social institution. In coherence with this argument, the paper will discuss on the public complaint in public institution which is seen as a way to improve public services. The study is carried out in Student Affairs department in Universiti Utara Malaysia in 2003. The objectives of the study is to measure the level of awareness of the services offered at the Complaint Unit HEP and complaints by the students of the university. The paper will then discuss the findings and suggests ways to improve existing systems so that the quality of service is further enhanced

Atomic cloud formation processes - Constraining the properties of the atomic interstellar medium by means of HI emission and HI self-absorption

Atomic hydrogen gas (HI) is an integral constituent of the interstellar medium (ISM) and thus plays a critical role in the assembly of molecular clouds, the sites of star formation. An important physical agent in controlling the transition from atomic to molecular gas is cold HI. HI emission, that traces a wide range of hydrogen properties, is found throughout the Galactic plane and exhibits complex kinematic signatures that are imposed by the Galactic rotation. The unfavorable viewing geometry from our vantage point in the Galaxy requires a new set of tools that allows us to disentangle HI structures along our lines of sight. In this thesis, I constrain the properties of the interstellar hydrogen in our Milky Way galaxy and present a way to isolate cold hydrogen from HI emission using HI self-absorption (HISA). The outer Galaxy offers a less confused view on HI emission, and we exploit this circumstance with unprecedented detail using the high-angular resolution data of The HI/OH/Recombination line survey of the inner Milky Way (THOR). We discover the “Maggie” filament, one of the largest, almost purely atomic filaments in the Milky Way. Maggie has a length of 1.2 kpc and is located on the far side of the Galaxy at a distance of 12 kpc from the Galactic center. Optical depth measurements suggest that Maggie is in a largely cold HI phase and molecular gas is only found on the smallest spatial scales. When targeting molecular clouds in the inner Galactic plane, we detect pronounced HISA as a tracer of cold hydrogen. While the kinematic correlation is less surprising due to the selection bias of our sample, the spatial distribution of cold HI gas is also found to be well correlated with that of the molecular gas. The detection of HISA furthermore extends to the whole of our survey. We frequently find absorption signatures without any associated molecular counterpart. While cold atomic gas is rendered vitally important to the formation process of molecular clouds, the cold phase of atomic hydrogen marks a distinct gas phase in the ISM that exists throughout the Galaxy, independent of the occurrence of molecular gas

Design and Development of In-Line Optical Amplifiers

Fiber optic technology is not entirely perfect, even with its amazing capabilities. As the transmissions cover larger distances, signal loss occurs and amplification is required. Hence, to transmit information over longer distances, the optical signals need to be boosted. The conventional method of boosting these signals is by using the electrical repeaters. The concept of electrical repeaters may sound attractive, but it poses several problems. This is because repeaters can only work at specific bit rate, wavelength and modulation format. The need for optical amplifiers has arisen because the repeaters concept delays the transmission and may introduce noise in the signal. Optical signals require amplification at different points on communications links. There are three types of amplifiers located along this link. The first type is the power amplifiers that are placed directly after the optical transmitter. Secondly, there are the in-line amplifiers that operate with a signal in the middle of a fiber-optic link and lastly, the pre amplifiers, which magnify the signal before it reaches the receiver. In this research, the design and development of optical amplifiers focused only on in-line amplifiers. Among the variety of optical amplifiers, Erbium doped fiber amplifiers were chosen as the optical amplifiers because erbium is the most efficient active medium that allows optical signals to be transmitted over very long distances without the need for signal regeneration. In this thesis, the hands-on experiments of the in-line optical amplifiers design were carried out. The design models comprised single and double stages of Erbium doped fiber amplifiers setups. At the single stage device level, testing was conducted to study the effects of the design parameters that are pump power, Erbium doped fiber length, signal wavelength and input power. The analysis on the double stage Erbium doped fiber amplifier was carried out for the device level testing based on the effects of the performance parameters i.e., gain, output power, noise figure and Amplified Spontaneous Emission level with the inclusion of tunable band pass filter. The results showed that the double stage amplifiers had a greater advantage compared to the single stage. The double stage Erbium doped fiber amplifiers with tunable band pass filter and the utilization of the backward pumping scheme had increased the gain more than that with the forward pumping scheme. The noise problem created in the Erbium doped fiber amplifiers was the main source that contributed to the high Amplified Spontaneous Emission. The concatenated chain caused the Amplified Spontaneous Emission to accumulate. Hence, inserting a tunable band pass filter in the design reduced the noise figure. Varying the parameters and selecting the suitable setup can improve the performance of the in-line amplifier system. The results of the study showed the most suitable design setup is the double stage Erbium doped fiber amplifiers, which increase the gain but reduce the noise leve

IFRS, financial reporting approach, earnings attributes and value relevance of intangible assets : empirical evidence from the UK

Strathclyde theses - ask staff. Thesis no. : T13385This study might interest academics, researchers, accounting regulators, practitioners and investors. Its main objective is to provide empirical evidence on how IFRS has affected earnings, intangible assets, financial reporting approach and the value relevance of intangible assets. This study hypothesises that the IFRS adoption would; increase earnings and intangible assets; have further shifted financial reporting approach towards a valuation approach; increase earnings volatility (reduce earnings persistence) and consequently increase the value relevance of intangible assets. The main methods of investigation are regression analysis. In accounting, reporting intangible assets remain controversial and challenging. IFRS to some degree would benefit U.K. investors if it increases reporting of intangible assets, particularly of different classes of intangible assets. However, existing research offers very little empirical evidence as most value relevance studies focus on earnings and book value of equity. This study reveals several key findings. First, earnings are significantly greater under IFRS but not at all different profit levels, which suggests that IFRS brings offsetting effects on earnings. However, IFRS produces mixed effects on earnings volatility and earnings persistence. Earnings are slightly more volatile but no significant impact on earnings persistence. Second, intangible assets are higher under IFRS and reporting of different classes of intangible assets is increasing. Third, this study documents broadly classified intangible assets are not value relevant which signifies the importance of specific classifications of intangible assets. Fourth, IFRS has minimal impact on the value relevance of intangible assets but intangible assets have significantly greater predictive value under IFRS. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing new findings on the impact of IFRS on accounting information in general and on intangible assets in specific. This study differs from prior study by several aspects. First, financial companies were not excluded but were separately analysed. Second, it further investigates the impact of IFRS on the two primary qualities for relevant information (informative and predictive values). Third, this study contributes to the literature by providing new empirical evidence on the value relevance of intangible assets and different classes of intangible assets. In the future, researchers can investigate the impact of adopting IFRS on the reliability of accounting information as reliability is the other specific quality for producing decision-useful information.This study might interest academics, researchers, accounting regulators, practitioners and investors. Its main objective is to provide empirical evidence on how IFRS has affected earnings, intangible assets, financial reporting approach and the value relevance of intangible assets. This study hypothesises that the IFRS adoption would; increase earnings and intangible assets; have further shifted financial reporting approach towards a valuation approach; increase earnings volatility (reduce earnings persistence) and consequently increase the value relevance of intangible assets. The main methods of investigation are regression analysis. In accounting, reporting intangible assets remain controversial and challenging. IFRS to some degree would benefit U.K. investors if it increases reporting of intangible assets, particularly of different classes of intangible assets. However, existing research offers very little empirical evidence as most value relevance studies focus on earnings and book value of equity. This study reveals several key findings. First, earnings are significantly greater under IFRS but not at all different profit levels, which suggests that IFRS brings offsetting effects on earnings. However, IFRS produces mixed effects on earnings volatility and earnings persistence. Earnings are slightly more volatile but no significant impact on earnings persistence. Second, intangible assets are higher under IFRS and reporting of different classes of intangible assets is increasing. Third, this study documents broadly classified intangible assets are not value relevant which signifies the importance of specific classifications of intangible assets. Fourth, IFRS has minimal impact on the value relevance of intangible assets but intangible assets have significantly greater predictive value under IFRS. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing new findings on the impact of IFRS on accounting information in general and on intangible assets in specific. This study differs from prior study by several aspects. First, financial companies were not excluded but were separately analysed. Second, it further investigates the impact of IFRS on the two primary qualities for relevant information (informative and predictive values). Third, this study contributes to the literature by providing new empirical evidence on the value relevance of intangible assets and different classes of intangible assets. In the future, researchers can investigate the impact of adopting IFRS on the reliability of accounting information as reliability is the other specific quality for producing decision-useful information

The study of Pharmacoeconomics analysis on anti tuberculosis drugs Rifampicin & Ethambutol

Cost-benefit analysis can be used to quantify the value of clinical pharmacy services. Providing Effective Therapy and Minimum cost, Quantify costs of care, Quantify outcomes, Assess whether and by how much average costs and outcomes differ among treatment groups, Compare magnitude of difference in costs and outcomes and evaluate “value for costs” by reporting a cost-effectiveness ratio, net monetary benefit, or probability that ratio is acceptable – Potential hypothesis: Cost per quality-adjusted life year saved significantly less than Rs.75,000, To Perform sensitivity analysis. For providing good effective therapy with less adverse drug reaction at affordable price, Cost-Identification, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Cost-Utility Analysis, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Clinical outcomes: Cure, comfort and survival, Humanistic outcomes: Physical, emotional, social function, role performance, Economic outcomes, Economic Evaluation, Cost of Illness Evaluation (COI), Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), Cost Minimization Analysis, Cost Effective Analysis: Cost Utility Analysis

Deep learning based Brain Tumour Classification based on Recursive Sigmoid Neural Network based on Multi-Scale Neural Segmentation

Brain tumours are malignant tissues in which cells replicate rapidly and indefinitely, and tumours grow out of control. Deep learning has the potential to overcome challenges associated with brain tumour diagnosis and intervention. It is well known that segmentation methods can be used to remove abnormal tumour areas in the brain. It is one of the advanced technology classification and detection tools. Can effectively achieve early diagnosis of the disease or brain tumours through reliable and advanced neural network classification algorithms. Previous algorithm has some drawbacks, an automatic and reliable method for segmentation is needed. However, the large spatial and structural heterogeneity between brain tumors makes automated segmentation a challenging problem. Image tumors have irregular shapes and are spatially located in any part of the brain, making their segmentation is inaccurate for clinical purposes a challenging task. In this work, propose a method Recursive SigmoidNeural Network based on Multi-scale Neural Segmentation (RSN2-MSNS) for image proper segmentation. Initially collets the image dataset from standard repository for brain tumour classification.  Next, pre-processing method that targets only a small part of an image rather than the entire image. This approach reduces computational time and overcomes the over complication. Second stage, segmenting the images based on the Enhanced Deep Clustering U-net (EDCU-net) for estimating the boundary points in the brain tumour images. This method can successfully colour histogram values are evaluating segment complex images that contain both textured and non-textured regions. Third stage, Feature extraction for extracts the features from segmenting images using Convolution Deep Feature Spectral Similarity (CDFS2) scaled the values from images extracting the relevant weights based on its threshold limits. Then selecting the features from extracting stage, this selection is based on the relational weights. And finally classified the features based on the Recursive Sigmoid Neural Network based on Multi-scale Neural Segmentation (RSN2-MSNS) for evaluating the proposed brain tumour classification model consists of 1500 trainable images and the proposed method achieves 97.0% accuracy. The sensitivity, specificity, detection accuracy and F1 measures were 96.4%, 952%, and 95.9%, respectively

The factors that influence Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) sales performance / Syarifah Nurul Ain Syed Ibrahim

The availability of LPG as the multi-purpose fuel presents significant opportunities for extending energy services into the community and for generating value-added commercial and industrial applications. The developments of this energy sources can improve the economy besides the communities. As a multinational company who is generates and supplies the oil and gas sources, PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad (PDB) which is partly owned by the Petroleum Nasional (PETRONAS) played the roles in managing the oil and gas industry. This is done by getting information at PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad (PDB) itself by using secondary data that are related with the sales of LPG. The study covered the data from 2002 until 2010. The purpose of this study is to observe whether the gross national income (GNI), industrial production index (IPI) and the advertisement values can give impact to the LPG’s sales performance at the PDB’s Eastern Regional Office. Regarding the finding of the study, it shows that only two independent variables that have significant values which influenced the sales performance of liquefied petroleum gas. This study used the secondary data which obtained from PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad Eastern Regional Office as for the research methodology. Otherwise, the study used the Statistical Procedure of Social System to transform the data into the output to be analyzed. To conclude, the study found that the sales performance of LPG can be influenced by the industrial production index and the advertisement value