Student’s habits and preferences in digital game : a case of designing an educational game for primary schools student

The embedded technology in learning for primary school students is seen as a paradigm shift in education. However, in developing countries, technology is more actively utilised in higher education and secondary schools rather than primary school. Digital game, on the other hand, is much preferred by primary school students after their school time. Educational games or even entertainment games can be found online or in the market, however, most of the designs are not user centric. This paper will further discuss the initial study phase which was done to; (1) identify student’s habits towards digital game usage; (2) identify digital game design preferences by students and; (3) purposive sampling findings. This investigation is to identify interested and capable students in engaging future digital game design activities. In order to further investigateon students’ habits and game design preferences, we will use the first phase of PDEduGame framework process. Hence, a preliminary investigation was done with 287 primary school students aged 10 to 11 years old. The Islamic Religious Primary School (KAFA) in Selangor District was selected for this investigation purposes. The next part of this study is the elaboration on the methodology used during the investigation. Some teachers were interviewed to support the investigation. The results from the investigation will be further discussed and elaborated in the descriptively. Finally, from the results, we suggest the input generated for the initial study stage for the second stage of the participatory design framework process

Developmental pressure and nutrient concentrations of Sungai Petani catchment, Kedah

Developmental pressure is encroaching many small towns and cities in Malaysia. The wave of development has caused small towns like Sungai Petani Town and its surrounding catchment area to be affected by the changing land uses due to developmental pressure in the catchment area. This paper examined the temporal patterns of nutrient concentrations longitudinally along the Sungai Petani River from March 2012 to December 2013 due to the unequal distribution of ‘green’ areas with respect to the ‘grey’ areas. Four stations were chosen longitudinally from upper Sungai Petani River downstream towards Sungai Petani Town and were monitored from upstream part of Sungai Petani Town which is the least affected station, through Sungai Petani Town and towards the downstream station below the Sungai Petani Town. Water sampling at all stations were performed through grab sampling technique at depths of about 0.5 m. Water samples were analysed only for dissolved forms of nitrate (NO3), ammoniacal nitrogen (NH4), total nitrogen (TN), phosphate (P04) and total phosphorus (TP).The samples were analysed using standard procedure by Adams (1989) and APHA (1998). Most of the nutrient concentrations increased from upper station to the second station situated in the Sungai Petani Town. Nitrate increases by 6 per cent and 15 per cent in 2012 and 2013 respectively, ammonia increases by 11 per cent and 35 per cent respectively, TN by 16 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, TP by 45 per cent and 44 per cent respectively, and PO4 by 13 per cent and 90 per cent respectively. On the other hand, the concentration decreases from second to the last station at the outlet downstream of the town. Nitrate decreases by 16 per cent and 27 per cent in 2012 and 2013 respectively, ammonia increases by 28 per cent and 44 per cent respectively. TN by 34 per cent and 41 per cent respectively, TP 16 per cent and 28 per cent respectively, and PO4 increases another 2.4 per cent in 2012 but decline by 42 per cent in 2013. The effect of urbanisation and development is clearly the main cause of the deteriorating water environment as shown by the increasing nutrient concentration along the Sungai Petani River where most of the parameters are above the permissible threshold limit

Faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi tahap kepuasan pelanggan: Kajian kes program pembangunan pihak berkuasa koridor utara (NCIA)

Tahap kepuasan pelanggan terhadap hasil atau khidmat yang diberikan oleh sesebuah agensi adalah merupakan aspek penting dalam mengukur produktiviti dan efektiviti sesuatu program atau projek yang dilaksanakan oleh agensi tersebut. Maka, kajian ini dijalankan bagi mengukur tahap kepuasan pelanggan terhadap program pembangunan Pihak Berkuasa Perlaksanaan Koridor Utara (NCIA) serta mengenal pasti faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi tahap kepuasan pelanggan tersebut. Kajian ini dijalankan berdasarkan empat dimensi iaitu kaedah penyampaian, perancangan, perlaksanaan, dan kesan kepada negara.Sejumlah 61 borang soalselidik telah diedarkan kepada responden yang terdiri daripada organisasiorganisasi yang terlibat dengan program NCIA. Seterusnya, data yang diperoleh dijalankan analisis deskriptif dengan menggunakan program Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) versi 24. Hasil analisis mendapati tahap kepuasan organisasi yang terlibat dalam program NCIA berada pada tahap memuaskan dan amat memuaskan. Dimensi yang memiliki purata tahap kepuasan paling tinggi ialah kaedah penyampaian.Diikuti dengan dimensi kesan kepada negara, perancangan dan perlaksanaan oleh NCIA. Ini menunjukkan organisasi-organisasi terbabit paling berpuas hati dengan program NCIA dari aspek kaedah penyampaian yang dilihat dari segi boleh membantu syarikat mereka, bantuan yang diberikan boleh menguntungkan syarikat mereka, serta dapat memberikan manfaat terhadap syarikat mereka untuk jangka masa panjang

Impak pembangunan projek NCIA terhadap komuniti di Wilayah Koridor Utara

Wilayah Ekonomi Koridor Utara (NCER) merupakan salah satu koridor yang dibentuk bagi pembangunan di negeri-negeri Utara Semenanjung Malaysia iaitu Perlis, Kedah, Pulau Pinang dan Utara Perak dengan fokus utama pembangunan sektor pertanian dan perkilangan elektronik.NCIA merupakan pihak berkuasa yang bertanggungjawab merancang, melaksana dan memantau program-program pembangunan di NCER.Pelbagai projek pembangunan mengikut sektor telah dijalankan sepanjang penubuhan NCER.Antara sektor-sektor tersebut ialah pertanian, perkhidmatan, perkilangan dan pembangunan sosial.Manakala jenis projek adalah seperti ABM masuk kampung iaitu projek kerjasama antara NCIA dan ABM, Community Innovation Center (CIC) iaitu projek kerjasama antara NCIA dan USM, penambahbaikan zoo Taiping, Jejak Warisan Taiping, Rapid Kamunting, fertigasi cili AGB-YKSAM, pengurusan estet padi dan sebagainya. Persoalannya, sejauhmanakah projek-projek ini mencapai objektif yang digariskan? Kajian ini akan menilai keberkesanan projek yang telah dilaksanakan berdasarkan persepsi masyarakat yang menerima projek tersebut.Survey terhadap komuniti yang terlibat dijalankan bagi memperolehi data primer berkaitan tahap kepuasan mereka terhadap projek yang diterima. Analisis diskriptif digunakan bagi mengukur keberkesanan setiap projek pembangunan yang telah dilaksanakan berdasarkan tahap kepuasan komuniti.Dapatan yang diperolehi akan menjadi input kepada pihak kerajaan bagi mengenalpasti ruang penambahbaikan untuk projek-projek pembangunan pada masa akan datang

Multi-criteria decision analysis for evaluating sustainable lifts design of public hospital buildings

Sustainability is a big trend in today's building industry. For instance, energy use, resource efficiency, materials selection, safety, and life-cycle management are all important considerations in making the transition to greener buildings. In the past, lifts have been overlooked in green building planning yet including them is a useful way to improve overall building functionality and efficiency. Lifts use a relatively small amount of energy compared to the overall energy consumption of a building yet they provide both daily carrier service for user and so they should be included in sustainability planning. With so many building products being marketed with a sustainable angle, lifts also need to be included in this improvement. Building process has become complex due to the involvement of multiple benchmark like social, economic and environmental dimensions. A significant challenge for those involved in the building industry is identifying and incorporating sustainable features into each of the building stage. This in turn puts constrains to decision makers in selecting the finest decision in achieving sustainable goal for every aspect of building processes. This paper investigates the multi-criteria decision analysis for sustainable lifts design, namely; criteria selection, criteria weighting, evaluation and final aggregation. Decision analysis plays a vital role for designing the systems by considering various criteria. The criteria were grouped based on economic, environmental and social dimensions. Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods were employed to rank the most important criteria that need to be considered in making the decision. A design team from hospital project specifically from mechanical and electrical department have been chosen for this study due to their expertise in planning and designing the mechanical aspects for a project. As a result, it shows the process of decision analysis and provides the direction for sustainable lifts criteria selection which has a significant effect on the design. The result shows the preference dimension for sustainable lift design is economic aspect including its criteria required as decision analysis output for planning and designing lifts systems for public hospital buildings

Key influencing factors for green public hospital building development in Malaysia

The green hospital movement began years ago, following by several countries release their green rating system for the hospital buildings. In the past few years, a few newly constructed private hospital buildings in Malaysia have strived for the green building index certification. Paucity studies demonstrate that public hospital buildings have established for certifying the index. Despite the recognition of the importance of green building in achieving sustainability goal and the existence of many studies on issues associated with green innovations adoption in general, few have specifically examined factors influencing the development of green public hospital building. As a result, with the intent to enhance green building promotion efforts, the primary objective of this study is to investigate the key factors influencing the development of green public hospital building. A review of literature has been conducted and a set of factors were identified. A questionnaire survey was carried out based on the literature review to solicit experts’ opinions. The experts were requested to evaluate the degree to which factor was an important in the implementation of green public hospital buildings. Feedbacks from 82 design experts were collected and analysed using descriptive analysis. The findings indicate that several factors were identified as key factors for the development of green public hospital buildings. The identified factors have incorporated with the accomplishment of environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic prosperity

Metal Oxide Coated Optical Fiber for Humidity Sensing Application: A Review

Humidity measurement in biomedicals, industry and electronic manufacturing applications needs an accurate and fast measurement of relative humidity by the sensor. In recent years, electronic sensors are utilized in the market, but optical humidity sensors provide several advantages over it. This paper reports the classification of optical fiber humidity sensors based on their working principles, such as fiber Bragg gratings, interferometers, and resonators. Along with the mentioned optical fiber structures, their fabrication process, equipment required for humidity sensing and the coating technique used are explained in this review. Recently, metal oxide semiconductors have been widely used as sensing material, specifically in humidity sensor applications. Thus, this paper explores optical fiber humidity sensors based on the three working principles mentioned, all of which incorporate metal oxide coatings. This review reveals that the most commonly used metal oxide for optical fiber humidity sensing is graphene oxide. This is because graphene oxide offers high sensitivity, fast response and recovery time over the other types of metal oxide. A large number of oxygen-containing groups on the surface and edge of graphene oxide also contribute to humidity sensing performance since it can permeate and absorb more water molecules. The use of hybrid nanomaterials is recently discovered and their potential as emerging coating material for optical applications are not fully exploited yet. Thus, there is still an opportunity for improvement in terms of sensitivity, response and recovery time in the context of optical fiber humidity sensor

Biological and Analytical Investigations of Alpha-Glucosidase Inhibitory and Anti-Oxidant Activities on Selected Malaysian Medicinal Plants

This study was performed to establish anti-diabetic and anti-oxidant properties, and to carry out phytochemical analysis of selected local plants which are traditionally used as medicinal plants. Local plants involved in this study were Lawsonia inermis, Punica granatum, Dryobalanops aromatica, Ziziphus mauritiana, and Ocimum basilicum. Solvent extraction was performed using maceration method with solvents of increasing polarity. Alpha-glucosidase inhibition assay was performed on all extracts to ascertain their anti-diabetic potentials. The extracts were screened for antioxidant activity using anti-oxidant assays (FRAP, DPPH, TAOC, ABTS, and BCB) and quantitative phytochemical analyses (TPC and TFC). Chemical profiling using LCMS and GCMS was performed on extracts with high biological activities. Methanol extracts of D. aromatica bark and leaves showed the most potent inhibition of alpha-glucosidase with IC50 values of 0.63 ± 0.03 µg/mL and 0.98 ± 0.02 µg/mL, respectively. Both extracts exhibited similar anti-oxidant activity on all five assays and possessed high phenolic contents with values of 266.79 and 261.69 GAE, respectively. The results obtained suggested that amongst the selected plants studied, D. aromatica showed high anti-oxidant activity and anti-diabetic activity (via inhibition of alpha-glucosidase). This is the first report that highlights the anti-diabetic potential of D. aromatica

Elaeis oleifera Genomic-SSR Markers: Exploitation in Oil Palm Germplasm Diversity and Cross-Amplification in Arecaceae

Species-specific simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are favored for genetic studies and marker-assisted selection (MAS) breeding for oil palm genetic improvement. This report characterizes 20 SSR markers from an Elaeis oleifera genomic library (gSSR). Characterization of the repeat type in 2000 sequences revealed a high percentage of di-nucleotides (63.6%), followed by tri-nucleotides (24.2%). Primer pairs were successfully designed for 394 of the E. oleifera gSSRs. Subsequent analysis showed the ability of the 20 selected E. oleifera gSSR markers to reveal genetic diversity in the genus Elaeis. The average Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) value for the SSRs was 0.402, with the tri-repeats showing the highest average PIC (0.626). Low values of observed heterozygosity (Ho) (0.164) and highly positive fixation indices (Fis) in the E. oleifera germplasm collection, compared to the E. guineensis, indicated an excess of homozygosity in E. oleifera. The transferability of the markers to closely related palms, Elaeis guineensis, Cocos nucifera and ornamental palms is also reported. Sequencing the amplicons of three selected E. oleifera gSSRs across both species and palm taxa revealed variations in the repeat-units. The study showed the potential of E. oleifera gSSR markers to reveal genetic diversity in the genus Elaeis. The markers are also a valuable genetic resource for studying E. oleifera and other genus in the Arecaceae family

'Serene classroom' minimizes noise for more conducive learning

Noise pollution can be categorized as a danger in silence. In school, noise pollution inhibits the focus of learning, impairs learning and cognitive development, for example, students' skills to think and understand both oral and written comprehension may be hampered by noise. Many schools in Malaysia experience excessive noise pollution as their locations are very near busy roads. This will be one factor that hinders the implementation of the education system in producing holistic students in order to prepare for the 4IR era. Knowing the importance of this problem, a group of researchers from UTM GREENPrompt, School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia together with industry partners have built a special class called 'Serene Classroom' through a community project to overcome this problem. A classroom on the second floor of Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampong Pasir, Johor Bahru that has traffic noise exposure from the Skudai-Johor Bahru highway was selected for this purpose. The community project is in collaboration with the Johor State Education Department, Ministry of Education Malaysia and industrial partners, such as Vibrant Echo Company, Sanjung Sempurna Sdn. Bhd. and DZAZ Collection. The implementation of the project, the lessons learned from the project and challenges for the implementation are discussed. Technically, Serene classrooms significantly reduce the level of noise pollution for more conducive learning and have received better perceptions from students and teachers. Therefore, hopefully more ‘Serene Classroom’ community projects can be implemented in schools, especially in urban areas affected by high noise levels as a way to reduce the renovation costs on schools