Establishment of Vegetation on Exposed Carbonaceous Shale from Cut Slope

Shale is a common rock type in Malaysia. Some of the shales are carbonaceous in nature. Carbonaceous shale is exposed during construction of major highways. The instability on cut slopes contributes to soil erosion and in extreme cases slope failure may occur. The susceptibility of cut slopes to landsliding can be reduced in certain circumstances by establishment of a vegetation cover. The objective of this study were to determine the chemical properties of carbonaceous shale, suitable plants mix species and appropriate amendment for carbonaceous shale, and shear strength analysis upon establishment of the vegetation. Initial carbonaceous shale chemical properties were identified before conducting a glasshouse experiment to determine the effect of plant species and soil treatments on dry matter yield in pot experiments consisting of 4 plants specIes, 5 treatments and 4 replications. Completely randomized design was adopted in this experiment. The plants species (Brachiaria ruziziensis, Colopogonium mucunoides, Axonopus affinis and Veteveria zizanioides) were planted and treated with ground magnesium limestone (GML), chemical fertilizer (NPK), organic compost (Com), NPK +GML+compost (NGC) and control (Ctrl). Infiltration rate was determined using modified Double Ring Infiltrometer which was driven into the pot. The plant species that gave a relatively high dry matter yield from the glasshouse experiment Brachiaria ruziziensis and Colopogonium mucunoides were selected for the mix plant species study. The plants were grown in the wooden boxes measuring 20 cm (length) X 20 cm (width) X 100 cm (height). They were treated with compound fertilizer (NPK), NPK + GML (NGL), NPK + GML + foliar fertilizer (Vita-Grow™)(NGF) and control (Ctrl). Complete randomized experimental design was adopted with five replications in this experiment. The shear strength analysis was conducted using the direct shear test method where the angle of internal friction (o) and cohesion (c) were determined from the plotted graph in order to get the shear strength result

Total Factor Productivity Growth, Efficiency and Technological Progress of the Malaysian Manufacturing Sector

Productivity growth has always been an important aspect of Malaysia's economic policy. This is evident in every stage of Malaysia's economic development plans. Sustainable economic growth need to continuously focus on improvements in productivity. Productivity-driven growth has gained momentum in many countries since the 1970's. The Seventh Malaysia Plan (1 995-2000), had placed the importance of productivity with a shift in policy, where productivity-driven strategy was the primary synergy to growth in the future. The productivity-driven strategy is further emphasised in the Eighth Malaysia Plan (2001-2005) and in the Third Outline Perspective Plan (OPP3) (2001-2010). As a result, Malaysia was able to recover from the financial crisis faced in 1997 and experience sustainable economic growth. In view of Malaysia's current full employment situation, total investment is expected to decline. Malaysia's future growth henceforth will depend more on productivitydriven growth strategies. Enhancing productivity growth is essential to achieve high economic growth substantial improvement in income distribution, relative price stability and poverty eradication. Due to limited resources and capacity in capital accumulation accompanied by stiff competition in attracting foreign investments, it has become more pertinent to move the economic development strategy from input-driven to productivity-driven growth by enhancing the contribution of Total Factor Productivity (TFP). As Malaysia moves forward to achieve her goals as set in Vision 2020, she is expected increasing her bottlenecks and limitations especially in terms of skill and organisational/technological capabilities. Shortage of labour will also increase the cost of production which would lead to the erosion of competitiveness. Furthermore, she will increase competitiveness due to globalisation and liberalisation. Nonetheless, that there has been relatively low TFP growth both in the manufacturing sector as well as the economy as a whole. The main objective of this dissertation is to demonstrate the usefulness of recent developments in stochastic frontier analyses in measuring the TFP, efficiency and technological progress in Malaysian manufacturing industries (1985-2001), and the specific objectives are: (i) To provide alternative estimations of technical and cost/allocative efficiency, technological progress and TFP of Malaysian manufacturing sector by using four alternative approaches: Production Function (Cobb Douglas Production Frontier (CDP), Translog Production Frontier (TP)) and Dual Cost Function (Cobb Douglas iii Cost Frontier (CDC) and Translog Cost Frontier (TC)); (ii) To review and identify the underlying impact, assumptions, approach, nature and applications of the above models for Malaysia; (iii) To review the results of alternative estimates of efficiency, technological progress and TFP; (iv) To discuss the relationships between technological progress, efficiency and TFP in Malaysian manufacturing industries; (v) To utilise the results of the models in planning for higher TFP growth; and (vi) To provide some policy implications. According to economists, there are three sources contributing to economic growth of a nation: inflation rate, employment growth and productivity growth. In exploring the later, this study uses 4 alternative models, and the selected final model is the translog cost frontier model. This provides estimations of technical and cost 1 allocative efficiency, technological progress and TFP of twenty selected Malaysian manufacturing sub-sectors using stochastic frontier panel data of time-variant. This study has been able to provide a detailed trend analysis of TFP growth, technological progress, allocativelcost efficiency and the effects of scale economies at 3 and 5-digits sub-sector level of the Malaysian manufacturing sector. The importance of measuring the two components of TFP growth i.e., technicallcost efficiency change and technological progress is that they may provide insights into the causes of low productivity. In this study, the methodologies of stochastic frontier production and cost are employed using microlfirm level data. Microlfirm level data have the advantage of overcoming some of the measurement problems and aggregation bias associated with aggregated industry data. Furthermore, the stochastic frontier production and cost methods will enable us to separate the contributions of technological progress and changes in technicallcost efficiency to TFP growth. The latter can also provide important policy guidelines on the possible factors underlying the productivity issue. This study has provided TFP growth estimates which show considerable effects by changes in technicallallocative efficiency technological progress and scale of components. The overall manufacturing sector for the period 1986-2001 registers TFP growth of 0.69%. The sub-sectors which register high TFP growth are textiles, wood products, other chemicals products, nonferrous metal, electrical machinery, beverages and other manufacturing. Subsectors with low TFP growth are machinery except electrical, rubber products, transport equipment and fabricated metal. The allocativelcost efficiency is the main contributor to TFP growth as compared to technological progress. The overall manufacturing sector for the period 1985-2001 registers an efficiency contribution of 66.0%, scale components 33.0% and technological progress 1 .O% to the TFP. These determinants will give a positive significant effect on productivity growth

Equine Herpesvirus Type 4 Infection: Seroepidemiology, Pathogenesis and the Effect on Racing Performance

Equine rhinopneumonitis is an equine respiratory disease caused by equine herpesvirus type 4 (EHV -4). This study provides the first information on the disease status in Malaysia. Serological survey conducted on 1,023 blood samples, representing 23% of equid population in Malaysia (including Sabah and Sarawak) reveals a moderate seroprevalence rate of 60%. However, the prevalence ranges between 0 and 100%. The state that has 0% prevalence maintained the ponies as a closed herd in contrast the states that have 100% prevalence, which are active in importing equids. Sero-prevalence to EHV-4 varies significantly between states, districts, stables, horse and pony types and age but not affected by upgrading of pony blood through cross breeding. Based on the equid types, thoroughbred racehorse has the highest prevalence of 100%, followed by the warm-blooded horse at 46.8% while pony and pony crosses has the lowest prevalence of 36.9%. Intranasal infection of EHV-4 on serologically negative local yearling ponies results in a disease characterised by clinical signs of nasal discharge and fever. The fever is not typical of the hyperthermia caused by viral infection since the biphasic temperature increment is absent. Transient leukopaenia is absent while the arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressures are not altered. All the changes reflect the mild nature of the EHV-4 infection. The histological and ultra-structural examinations of the mucosa of the respiratory tract indicated a substantial damage of the upper respiratory tract and tracheal mucosa. Multifocal erosion and extensive accumulation of serous, mucus and dead cells on epithelial surface have been observed. Changes in the nucleus include swelling, nucler lysis, nuclear membrane disintegration and dilation of perinuclei membrane. In the cytoplasm, the changes observed include vacuolar degeneration, mitochondria swelling with disintegrated cristaea and accumulation of fluid in cytocavity. Following intra-nasal inoculation, the infectious virus is rapidly transported to the upper respiratory tract and primary bronchiole. By day 7 post-infection, expression of antigen in sub-mandibular lymph node is markedly reduced as compared to day 3, suggesting a quick elimination of EHV-4 antigen. Successful detection of EHV-4 antigen from the nasal swab samples using nested peR at 24-48 hours post-race provides evidence that racing could reactivate latent infection and increase the risk of pony contracting the disease. The EHV-4 infection is found to have a negative effect on racing performance. Racehorses that are sero-negative had higher chances of improving or maintaining finishing position. The effect is more prominent in pony where seropositive pony is less likely to win the race

A Study Towards Shopping Behavior Among University Students and Factors Impacting On It

Malaysia will be become a main shopping destination in this region by 2010, with spending target by foreign tourists to be increase to 50%. The target can be achieved in two years from now and it can help to stimulate high income to Malaysia more than RM 10 billion per year. Understanding consumer shopping behavior is very important and become an interesting topic among scholars and marketer. By knowing the needs and wants of consumers retail industry could be more successful. This research is conducted with the objective to determine the shopping habits among students and spending pattern among students based on their financial sources and income. Based on previous work done by Ahmed, Ghingold, and Dahari (2007), aesthetic dimensions, escape dimension, flow dimension, exploration dimension, role enactment dimension, social dimension, and convenience dimension were selected as independent variables for this research. Convenience sampling technique was used and 377 respondents were selected to answer the questionnaire distributed by the researcher. The questionnaire consists of respondent's background and questions related to the 7 dimensions of shopping motives. Data analysis methods consist of frequency distribution, Chi-Square tests, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were used to derive the findings for the study. It is found that only escape is the most influential motive explaining university students' shopping behavior. Chi-Square tests conclude that all dimensions of shopping habit are significantly influenced by gender. As expected on average female students spent more time for each visit to shopping malls, visit more stores and spent more higher percentage of their income on shopping relative to male students. Finally, a few recommendations for future research and retail industry were suggested

An Islamic identity approach to developing pro-recycling attitudes in Malaysia

Recycling attitude and behaviour change have been traditionally explored from a socio-psychological perspective. Recent work on integrating social marketing communications interventions to influence this attitude and behavioural change has also grown. In particular, framing as a communications strategy has formed an important focus of this renewed stream of query. However, although the individual main effects of both positive and negative framing have been studied, the findings are mixed and do not offer clear justification in environmental studies. Sufficient articles emphasise that designing effective communication tools is vital and could be one of the reinforcement mechanisms to bridge the discrepancy. Furthermore, the studies on message framing effects and how consumer responses for single or multiple messages have received limited empirical consideration. Critically earlier studies have not specifically accounted for the influence of religion and moral identity in inducing behaviour change. Yet, within the type of context this study is embedded in, i.e. Malaysia, it would seem logical to tailor any interventions based on the socio-psychology on the target audience. Given the targeted nature of social marketing campaigns, this study proposes factoring in the Islamic self-identity of the Muslim target audiences in understanding recycling attitude change.In this study, an experimental design was employed. This study utilised a 2 (positive vs. negative) X 2 (Islamic identity framing: yes/no) X 2 (Moral identity framing: yes/no) between-subjects experimental design. Hence, eight groups (two control groups, six experimental groups) were required in total. The participants (n=850) were final-year business students at the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). The study found that informants would reflect different degrees of advertising effectiveness in response to different combinations of advertising framings, and Islamic framing will induce a better attitude towards the ad and a greater inclination to recycling intention. The results also indicated that, positive frames may be the most salient with Islamic appeals and may work effectively when emphasised with moral identity framing. Using identity framing to embed religion in these messages could have greater persuasive impact. As such this study is the first to highlight the use of Qur’anic verses as indicators of Islamic self-identity and demonstrate the effectiveness thereof for generating social change. Given the growing use of Qur’anic verses for social marketing interventions, this initial study represents an important contribution to validating the salience of this powerful social marketing approach

Organizational Commitment among Public Sector Employees: A Case Study in Universiti Utara Malaysia

The study of organizational commitment has paid little attention to the dynamic process of change in organizational commitment within the context of important of people in the organizational which are prevalent today and have a critical effect on the employee-organization relationship. The purpose of the present study is to develop understanding of organizational commitment and to examine whether there is a relationship between job satisfaction, leadership style, job performance with organizational commitment. The data for this study were collected from 234 administrative staff of University Utara Malaysia, and selected randomly from one of the Higher Learning Institution in Kedah. The findings from this study were indicated that there were significant relationship between job satisfaction, leadership style and job performance with organizational commitment. This is confirming that job satisfaction, leadership style and job performance is very important to ensure that the organization's goals achieved as a whole. Hence, Human Resource Managers should take pro active to improve better job environment and ensuring the organizational commitment among the employees

Purchasing Practice and the Performance of Small Medium Enterprise in Services Sector in Selangor

This study was to examine the relationship between purchasing practices and Small Medium Enterprise's performance in services sector in Selangor. To achieve the research objective, a survey involving distribution of questionnaires to 86 SMEs companies those involved in food services, photography, laundry, retail and transportation services in Selangor area. The survey was carried out from the month of November 2009 to December 2009. Out of 86 questionnaires sent, only 68 were returned for data analysis. All questionnaires received were complete and answered accordingly without missing data. Twenty eight questions inclusive five dimensions of purchasing (i.e. characteristic of organization's purchase, purchasing characteristic, sourcing strategy, buyer-supplier relationship and supplier selection) were asked. The study found that in general, staffs had favorable opinion with regard to purchasing practiced in their organization. The result from the survey shows that most of the respondents gave full support towards purchasing practice in their organization. Based on the findings, it is believed that purchasing practice in SMEs was played the important role to the performance of the company

Change Management Initiati Ves And Change Success In Direct Selling Industry: The Moderating Effect Of Attitude Towards Change

Disebabkan oleh kepentingan perubahan dalam organisasi perniagaan jualan langsung di Malaysia pada hari ini, maka kajian ini dilaksanakan untuk mencapai dua objektif penting Due to the importance of change in today’s direct selling business organizations in Malaysia, this study is conducted to accomplish two main objective

Malaysians’ popular online shopping websites during movement control order (Mco)

Movement Control Order (MCO) has been announced since the pandemic of corona virus spread cases increased dramatically. The key point emphasized in the implementation of MCO is a social distancing where is only one person is allowed to go out to seek daily necessities during daytime. Moreover, only selected essential business is allowed to operate with limited hour from 8 am to 8 pm only. Due to this order, the e-commerce has become an option to most consumers to fulfill their wants and needs. This paper presents the descriptive data that shows the shopping website that has been mostly visited by the consumers during the MCO phase one and phase two and the influencing factors of selected web sites to purchase during MCO. A survey was conducted throughout the country including Sabah and Sarawak using an open-ended questionnaire that was distributed online. A quantitative method with a descriptive research design was adopted to explore the data obtained in relation to the objective of the research. A total number of 280 adults from 14 states provided valid responses to the online questionnaire. The findings show that the top three shopping website that has been visited by the consumers were the Shopee, Lazada and Food Panda that sell general daily necessities needed by the consumers. The findings also showed that the elements of comfortable website referring to the attractive design, friendly user, having a selection of native language, amount of uploaded information and updating of the product details were the factors that contribute towards the attractions of consumers to be involved in online purchasin

Managing disaster preparedness for institution of higher learning: A study in Perlis

Unprecedented floods disaster that hit Johore, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan was due to abnormal weather conditions. Heavy rain which fall continuously non stop for between 3 to 4 days has raised the water level in some areas to a height of 15 feet deep. The flood disasters have caused devastating loss of property and life and some 100,000 people were evacuated to flood relief centers. Some of the floods victim lost all their belonging and property. Flood disaster has also caused water borne diseases to prevail. The future is bleak for these flood victims. Continuous government assistance is needed for these flood victims who lost everything is needed. Year in and year out, the monsoon season have cause floods disaster especially in the east coast state and is now a yearly common phenomena. However, the level of awareness and preparedness among the Malaysian community and the government machinery is still questionably low. Presently, there are 18 public universities in the country, the issue is what is the level of awareness does students and staff of the university put on the issue of floods or other natural disaster? Do we at the University are ready to face disaster situations if it occur in the University? At this juncture, the experiences of UniMAP’s contribution to the University’s community, the local community vis-à-vis the Malaysian Mechanism Disaster Management and functioning alongside the state machinery of Perlis state government during 17 December 2005 flood disaster can be used as an example. The aim of this study is to examine the disaster preparedness in University and to propagate the importance of disaster preparedness among the students and staffs through education. This pilot project will be conducted through interviews, observations and surveys. It is expected that this study will shed some light for further effective implementation of disaster preparedness management