The mediating effect of work category on the relationship between professional competencies` and decision making among public relations in government- linked companies

Organisational success can only be materialized when each stakeholder mutually agrees to benefit each other, thus making the organisation effective. And here is the main role of public relations (PR), were to be the middle person between each stakeholder, by performing their works through the competencies they mastered, to ensure that the decisions made will be valuable to organisation and stakeholders. The objective of this study is to examine the mediating effect of work category on the relationship between professional competencies and decision making among PR practitioners in government-linked companies (GLCs). A survey questionnaire was gathered from 157 PR practitioners and data were analysed through SEM PLS. Results indicated that the dimension of work category did influence the relationship between professional competency and decision making. In essence, the decision-making process of a PR practitioner working in Malaysia's GLCs can be enhanced or improved based on the level of professional competencies. The implication of these findings supported the role of the PR department as part of the important sub-system in organisation and competencies acquired by PR practitioners is the resource that able to maintain the survival of an organisation. In the nutshell, a large-scale study should be undertaken, which incorporate a large group of participants in the future to accommodate the responses from a wide population to increase the accuracy of results

The Effect of Overlapping Spread Value for Radial Basis Function Neural Network in Face Detection

In this paper, the effect of overlapping spread value for Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) in face detection is presented. The reason for taking the overlapping factor into consideration is to optimize the results for using variance spread value. Face detection is the first step in face recognition system. The purpose is to localize and extract the face region from the background that will be fed into the face recognition system for identification. General preprocessing approach was used for normalizing the image and a Radial Basis Function (RBF) Neural Network was used to distinguish between face and non-face images. RBFNN offer several advantages compared to other neural network architecture such as they can be trained using fast two stages training algorithm and the network possesses the property of best approximation. The output of the network can be optimized by setting suitable values of the center and spread of the RBF. The performance of the RBFNN face detection system will be based on the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and the False Rejection Rate (FRR) criteri

Stocking and species composition of second growth forests in Peninsular Malaysia.

Management of the production forests in Malaysia is currently undergoing a major change as the total extent of undisturbed forest being harvested is diminishing. Currently most of the harvesting operations are being conducted in second growth (rotation) forests and in the near future all production forest will solely consist of only logged forests. This is expected to result in a significant reduction of the supply of raw materials to the industry because second growth forest stands are generally poorer and not so well-stocked with quality timber species. According to the forest management systems applied to these forests, namely the Selective Management System (SMS) and the Malayan Uniform System (MUS), the residual forests should be able to recover in the specified rotation cycle and there should be sufficient quality crop for the second and subsequent harvests. To understand the situation, a study was carried to assess the stocking and species composition of second rotation forests in two production forests located in Tekam Forests Reserve, Pahang and Cherul Forest Reserve, Terengganu. The study results indicated that the second rotation forests are not as productive as predicted but still able to produce an economic harvest in terms of total timber yield within the specified rotation cycle. However, based on inventory projections of existing stocks, it was found that in general the forests have not fully recovered in terms of stocking of commercial species. Species composition has been altered favouring higher dominance of non-dipterocarp species. Some of the major factors that could have contributed to this phenomenon are slower recovery of the forest after the first cut, higher mortality due to logging damage, and implementation of cutting limit prescriptions that favour high removal of dipterocarps as they are dominant in the upper diameter classes. It must be noted that the second growth forest assessed were those that were more than 20 years old. Currently, forest management practices have improved significantly and thus the recent second growth forests are expected to be in a much better condition. The information generated from this project on the status of the stocking and species composition of second growth forest will be essential for improving planning and management of the resource with the aim of enhancing future productivity

Mediating effect of work category on relationship between professional competencies' and decision making among public relations practitioners in governmment - linked companies

Organizational success can only be achieved when each stakeholders mutually agrees in decision making process in which the decision made will benefit all parties and the organization will be able to operates effectively. For this reason, public relations (PR) plays an important role where the PR practitioners will be the middle person between each stakeholders to ensure that the decisions made will be valuable to the organization and stakeholders. This general objective of the study was to examine the mediating effect of work categories on the relationship between professional competencies and decision making among public relations (PR) practitioners in the government linked companies (GLCs). A survey was conducted and questionnaires were distributed to157 PR practitioners and data were later analyzed using the SEM PLS technique. Results showed that the dimension of work categories do not influence the relationship between professional competency and decision making. Most importance essence was the involvement in decision making process by PR practitioners working in Malaysia’s GLCs can be enhanced or improved through their level of professional competencies. The results supported the role of PR department to be part of the important sub-system in organization. Competencies acquired by PR practitioners were the main resource that can assist organization to survive. Meanwhile, the contribution of this study to the literature lies in its ability to illustrate the importance of PR competencies in influencing the decision-making process in an organization, which later can develop positive thinking among society on PR being one of the recognized and reputable professions