Safety management practices and safety behaviour among employees in steel fabrication construction company

Safety management practices play a vital role in reducing accident in the workplace by improving working conditions and positively influence both employers and employees attitudes and behavior towards safety and health. This study examined the perception of foreign employees in the steel fabrication construction company located in Shah Alam, Selangor on six management practices namely management commitment, safety training, workers’ participation, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures and safety promotion policies with safety compliance and safety participation by conducting a survey using questionnaires among 161 employees. The findings of this study revealed that management commitment, safety training, and safety rules and procedures are factors that have significant correlation with safety compliance. Meanwhile, among factors that have significance relationship between safety management practices with safety participation are safety training, safety rules and procedures and safety promotion policies. Safety training, and safety rules and procedures were identified as the safety management practices that supported both safety compliance and safety participation in this study. The findings provide valuable guidance for researchers and practitioners for identifying solutions that can improve safety and health at workplace

Public-Private Partnerships for E-Government Services: Lessons from Malaysia

Implementation of e-government is seen as a tool to improve government service delivery to citizens, businesses and within government agencies. The benefits could be more transparency, greater convenience, less corruption, revenue growth and cost reduction. However, lack of financial resources, and low levels of skills and limited capacity of governments are some of the main obstacles faced in pursuance of e-government nationwide. The introduction of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) is seen as a solution to overcome many of the obstacles and challenges faced by governments in realizing the objectives of e-government projects. PPP model is expected to increase opportunities for both the public and private sectors to serve their customers more effectively and efficiently. The main aim of this paper is to explore the need for PPP in e-government service delivery. This is done by discussing some success stories and looking at lessons learned by the Malaysian government to serve the stakeholders better in line with its vision and mission.- public-private partnership, information, communication, technology, e-government

Structural equation modelling of construction waste root causes and waste generation rate in Malaysian construction industry

Construction is one of the vital sectors in the economic growth, especially for a developing country like Malaysia. The rapid development of this industry is causing a huge amount of construction waste generated on site. Besides, illegal dumping of construction waste is quite a typical scenario in Malaysia which has been frequently published in the local newspapers and previous scholarly literature. Construction waste results from various causes which are necessary to be identified for reducing the waste generated in the construction project. Therefore, to overcome these problems, the root cause of the construction waste generation needs to be determined. The research aims to develop a structural relationship model between the root cause and waste generation rate for Malaysian construction industry. The quantitative approach, through a structured questionnaire survey is used to verify the root cause and determine the construction waste generation rate. A total of 321 questionnaire forms were received and analysed using factor analysis technique in SPSS software. The factor analysis resulted in 5 groups of root causes namely design and documentation, human resource, materials and equipment, project management and external. Furthermore, 12 types of material waste generation level were gathered through the questionnaire and the findings revealed that, timber and concrete waste are highly generated on site. Next, the relationship between the root causes of the construction waste and material waste generation rate was established using the advanced multivariate approach of the Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). It results that the performance of the model has a moderate explaining power ability with the value of R2 = 0.319, which is substantial. The model identifies that all 5 groups are significant with t-value ≥ 2.58 from bootstrapping process. The model indicates that design and documentation group has the highest impact on the material waste generation rate. In addition, the model was validated and verified by construction experts where 94% of them agreed with the findings. Therefore, the model has the potential to aid the construction practitioners to reduce the construction waste generation in construction projects by focusing on the critical root causes established

When Is Word Sense Disambiguation Difficult? A Crowdsourcing Approach

We identified features that drive differential accuracy in word sense disambiguation (WSD) by building regression models using 10,000 coarse-grained WSD instances which were labeled on Mturk. Features predictive of accuracy include properties of the target word (word frequency, part of speech, and number of possible senses), the example context (length), and the Turker’s engagement with our task. The resulting model gives insight into which words are difficult to disambiguate. We also show that having many Turkers label the same instance provides at least a partial substitute for more expensive annotation

Exploring the Indian opinion : interpretations of colonialism, anti-colonial activism, and Gandhi\u27s influence in three African countries, 1950-1960.

My research began by uncovering connections between the Non-Cooperation movement in India, led by Mohandas Gandhi and the Pan-Africanist movement in Ghana, led by Kwame Nkrumah, illuminating the process in which Nkrumah engaged with Gandhi’s political non-violence and non-cooperation. The research then sought to understand how the Mau Mau uprising acted as anti-colonial activism in Kenya, and how the Indian diaspora in both South Africa and Kenya, were interpreting the colonial response to the Mau Mau. This thesis aims to answer two questions: How did Gandhi’s political philosophies of non-violence influence/inform leaders, activists, and movements in Kenya and Ghana during the 20th century, and did diasporic interactions between Africans and Indians in the Global South yield a shared anti-colonial identity in resistance to British colonial rule? In answering these questions, this study identifies in what ways satyagraha impacted the anti-colonial activisms of Indians and Africans in colonial Kenya and Ghana and describes the negotiating of South Africa Indian views on violent and non-violent resistance to colonialism

Recruitment Practices in Malaysian Knowledge Intensive Start-Ups

This paper investigates Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) practices adopted by knowledge intensive start-up companies in Malaysia. SHRM is considered a key to the success of these firms in line with the Resource-Based-View (RBV) of the firm. Particular focus was given to recruitment practices as recruitment is viewed as having the most significant short term impact for start-ups. This paper is based on the case study of three Malaysian knowledge intensive start-ups. The study finds that Malaysian start-ups do not perceive SHRM as critical for their success. Owner-managers of Malaysian start-ups prefer an informal & unstructured SHRM process. Key SHRM areas of recruitment and compensation are ad hoc. These findings are in line with other studies carried out globally. This paper discussed the pros and cons of the SHRM practices at Malaysian Knowledge intensive start-ups and recommends a framework for recruitment in small knowledge intensive start-ups is proposed.

Energy Storage Systems for Energy Management of Renewables in Distributed Generation Systems

Distributed generation (DG) systems are the key for implementation of micro/smart grids of today, and energy storages are becoming an integral part of such systems. Advancement in technology now ensures power storage and delivery from few seconds to days/months. But an effective management of the distributed energy resources and its storage systems is essential to ensure efficient operation and long service life. This chapter presents the issues faced in integrating renewables in DG and the growing necessity of energy storages. Types of energy storage systems (ESSs) and their applications have also been detailed. A brief literature study on energy management of ESSs in distributed microgrids has also been included. This is followed by a simple case study to illustrate the need and effect of management of ESSs in distributed systems

Outsourcing Practices In Malaysia: A SWOT Analysis On The ICT Industry

In the last decade, outsourcing  has emerged as an important tool for enabling business around the world to gain full benefit. As Malaysia develops, the businesses must keep pace with changes that are occurring. Outsourcing initiatives are intended to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the business processes as well as IT performance. The rethinking of business strategies to develop and exploit core competencies, set the outsourcing bandwagon rolling.  It seeks to improve the quality, cost efficiency and seize of competitive advantage. This paper discusses the potential of  Malaysia as a global player for ICT outsourcing. The paper focuses on SWOT analysis of ICT outsourcing in Malaysia. This paper identifies current situations in Malaysia and discuss further with the analysis on strength, weaknesses, opportunity and threats which will give effect to the businesses and society at large. No significantThere is hardly any  study has been carried out on analyzing the ICT outsourcing industry’s potential in Malaysia. This is an emerging industry that Malaysian companies can should focus on by leveraging on thier  and develop the strengths and avoiding the threats within the overall ICT outsourcing foray. The lack of studyies and the potential of this industry in Malaysia, have motivated the authors to write about this topic. research further and contribute to the industry in terms of how to enhance its capabilities. The SWOT analysis will be the basis for the research.Our findings suggests that, Malaysia has the strength of becoming world player in ICT outsourcing because sufficient infrastructure, strategic position of Malaysia and English language is widely spoken. These are the plus points of Malaysia to further excel as the provider of ICT outsourcing. On the other hand, the weaknesses that need to overcome is the low level of  e-readiness in the world ranking. Political will and links with Middle East, China and India are the opportunities for Malaysia to laverage on its strength. However, Malaysia also need to avoid the threats such as slowly loosing competitive edge to lower cost producers namely Vietnam and China. Finally, our paper concludes with some options to enhance the capabilities of Malaysia as ICT outsourcing provider