An academic perspective of assessment questions bank

There are several electronic assessment systems being used in institutions of higher education (HE), especially in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) institutions. Some of these institutions built their assessment system into their institution’s Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). Most of these assessment systems are for general purposes where assessment questions are in the form of simple multiple choice question (MCQ) or short-answer questions. In practice, these types of assessment questions do not match many of the current learning requirements and learning outcomes. The concept of an assessment question bank that can be used by academics to share assessment content within or across an institution is not new, but the advancement of technology and technical developments now have made such a repository realizable than ever before. A question bank is now a specialized repository that can be accessed via a web interface for platform independence. The use of technology in developing the question bank provides much relief for the chores associated with preparing assessments, which in turn enhances the quality of the questions and improves the quality of the assessments. This paper presents the experience of Open University Malaysia (OUM) in developing its own Question Bank (QBank). This QBank system is designed to help the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who need to develop, classify and store their assessment such as MCQ and essay-type exam questions. This software is integrated with the OUM’s Virtual Learning Environments (myVLE) in order to allow easier and wider access to the SMEs and faculty. (Abstract by author

The Impact of World Crude Oil Price Changes on the Malaysian Economy: an Input-Output Analysis

By using an input-output model, this paper attempts to examine the economic impact on the Malaysian economy resulting from an increase in crude oil petroleum price. By simulating different levels of crude oil prices, we found that an increase in the world crude oil petroleum price gives more capacity to the economy in generating output and revenue collected by the government in the form of direct and indirect taxes. However, it is very clear that if the crude oil price reaches USD60/barrel, the government will be required to subsidise about RM8.27 of the petrol retail price in order to maintain the current price level. Keywords: Economic impact, input-output analysis, oil price, Malaysian economy JEL classification: C67, E6

Compact Dielectric Resonator Antenna with Band-Notched Characteristics for Ultra-Wideband Applications.

yesIn this paper, a compact dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with band-notched characteristics for ultra-wideband applications is presented. A comprehensive parametric study was carried out using CST Microwave Studio Suite TM 2011 to analyze and optimize the characteristics of the proposed antenna. Three shapes for the coupling slot were investigated. Simulation results show that the proposed DRA had a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 23% from 9.97 GHz to 12.558 GHz, and a maximum gain of 7.23 dBi. The antenna had a notched band centered at 10.57 GHz, which increased the reflection coefficient by 23.5 dB, and reduced the gain by 6.12 dB. The optimized designs were verified by experimental tests on fabricated samples

Electrical discharge machining of polycrystalline diamond using copper electrode – finishing condition

Research on machining process of Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) is becoming important as the material was believed suitable to be used for cutting tools of advanced aeronautical structure. Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) was regarded as the suitable method to machine PCD due its noncontact process nature. The objective of this research is to determine the influence of several EDM parameter such as sparking current, pulse duration, and pulse interval to the material removal rate and surface roughness of the machined PCD. Instead of significantly influenced the material removal rate, the sparking current was also highly influenced tha surface roughness. Highest material removal rate of approximately 0.005mm3/s was recorded by the EDM process with the highest current used of 5A, and lowest pulse interval of 1µs. The influence of pulse duration is not clearly seen at the lowest pulse interval used. On the other hand, 0.4µm was the lowest surface roughness value obtained in this research indicated by the highest sparking current, highest sparking duration and lowest sparking interval of 5A, 1µs and 1µs respectively

Polypyrrole thin film sensor base surface plasmon resonance for detection of Cu(II) and Fe(III) in aqueous solution

In this study, the performance of surface plasmon resonance method incorporated with polypyrrole sensing layer was examined for detection of Cu (II) and Fe (III) ions in aqueous solutions. The polypyrrole was prepared by electro-oxidation method on a gold layer for the detecting low concentration ions (0.1, 1 5 10 20 ppm). The experiments carried out at room temperature, and each sample was flowed through the flow cell. A photodiode registered the SPR signals as the function of rotation angle and thickness of layers. For observing the association and dissociation processes, the experiments repeated more than ten times, and the sensorgrams were obtained. Furthermore, Langmuir model was utilized to describe the binding interactions of ions with the polypyrrole layer. The lower concentration detection limit was about 0.1 ppm and the terminal resonance angles were occurred after the 300 s. The sensor was also found to be more sensitive to the presence of Cu than Fe ions

Balanced dual-segment cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas for ultra-wideband applications.

yesIn this paper, balanced dual segment cylindrical dielectric antennas (CDRA) with ultra wide-band operation are reported. First a T-shaped slot and L-shaped microstrip feeding line are suggested to furnish a balanced coupling mechanism for feeding two DRAs. Performance of the proposed antenna was analyzed and optimized against the target frequency band. The proposed antenna was then modified by adding a C-shaped strip to increase the gain. The performances of both balanced antennas were characterized and optimized in terms of antenna reflection coefficient, radiation pattern, and gain. The antennas cover the frequency range from 6.4 GHz to 11.736 GHz, which is 58.7% bandwidth. A maximum gain of 2.66 dB was achieved at a frequency of 7 GHz with the first antenna, with a further 2.25 dB increase in maximum gain attained by adding the C-shaped strip. For validation, prototypes of the two antennas were fabricated and tested. The predicted and measured results showed reasonable agreement and the results confirmed good impedance bandwidth characteristics for ultra-wideband operation from both proposed balanced antennas

Kritik al-Quran oleh Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd melalui terapan hermeneutics humanistic

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd dikenali sebagai seorang tokoh yang lantang mengkritik al-Quran pada abad ini. Beliau mempunyai metode yang tersendiri ketika mentafsir al-Quran iaitu mengaplikasi hermeneutik dengan menerapkan elemen humanistic. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis elemen humanistic yang dibawa oleh Abu Zayd dalam empat aspek iaitu definisi al-Quran, konsep bahawa wahyu, proses penurunan wahyu dan metode pentafsiran. Empat aspek tersebut dibandingkan secara berterusan dengan al-Quran dan al-Sunnah. Untuk mencapai validity data, artikel yang bersifat kualitatif ini menggunakan metode analisis kandungan yang terdiri daripada karyakarya Abu Zayd sebagai sumber pengumpulan data. Manakala analisis data menggunakan kaedah diskriptif dan perbandingan berterusan. Hasil kajian menunjukkan, elemen humanistic yang telah diterapkan kepada al-Quran telah mencetuskan implikasi terhadap al- Quran, konsep wahyu, tafsiran relatif dan liberalisasi hukum syariah

Synthesis and application of polypyrrole/carrageenan nano-bio composite as a cathode catalyst in microbial fuel cells

A novel nano-bio composite polypyrrole (PPy)/kappa-carrageenan(KC) was fabricated and characterized for application as a cathode catalyst in a microbial fuel cell (MFC). High resolution SEM and TEM verified the bud-like shape and uniform distribution of the PPy in the KC matrix. X-ray diffraction (XRD) has approved the amorphous structure of the PPy/KC as well. The PPy/KC nano-bio composites were then studied as an electrode material, due to their oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) ability as the cathode catalyst in the MFC and the results were compared with platinum (Pt) as the most common cathode catalyst. The produced power density of the PPy/KC was 72.1 mW/m2 while it was 46.8 mW/m2 and 28.8 mW/m2 for KC and PPy individually. The efficiency of the PPy/KC electrode system is slightly lower than a Pt electrode (79.9 mW/m2) but due to the high cost of Pt electrodes, the PPy/KC electrode system has potential to be an alternative electrode system for MFCs

Electrical discharge machining of polycrystalline diamond using copper electrode – finishing condition

Research on machining process of Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) is becoming important as the material was believed suitable to be used for cutting tools of advanced aeronautical structure. Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) was regarded as the suitable method to machine PCD due its noncontact process nature. The objective of this research is to determine the influence of several EDM parameter such as sparking current, pulse duration, and pulse interval to the material removal rate and surface roughness of the machined PCD. Instead of significantly influenced the material removal rate, the sparking current was also highly influenced tha surface roughness. Highest material removal rate of approximately 0.005mm3/s was recorded by the EDM process with the highest current used of 5A, and lowest pulse interval of 1µs. The influence of pulse duration is not clearly seen at the lowest pulse interval used. On the other hand, 0.4µm was the lowest surface roughness value obtained in this research indicated by the highest sparking current, highest sparking duration and lowest sparking interval of 5A, 1µs and 1µs respectively

Non-functional requirement template for usability aspect based on NIMSAD evaluation engineering

In requirement engineering, non-functional requirement is a requirement that specifies characteristics of system behavior and sys-tem quality attributes. Furthermore, a non-functional requirement template facilitates system stakeholders in better system documentation, system elicitation and system traceability. However, some non-functional requirements may come from many type of requirements document and no stringent standard has been applied that lead to various pattern of non-functional requirements tem-plate. Specifically, in usability requirement, the quality attribute is being ignored and less expressive in majority requirements document. Therefore, this study was motivated to propose the most feasible non-functional requirement template for usability aspect. NIMSAD evaluation is used to obtain the most feasible non-functional requirement template by comparing existing non-functional requirement templates based on the following criteria which are i) general concepts, ii) modeling concepts and iii) analysis concepts. From the NIMSAD evaluation results, it is found that Boilerplates template is the most feasible non-functional requirement tem-plate for usability aspect