Investigation of variations and trends in TSP concentrations in the Klang Valley region, Malaysia

Air pollution in the atmosphere by TSP is a problem that has been growing for the last few years due to rapid industrialization, population growth and urbanization in the Klang Valley Region. Suspended particle levels are monitored in ambient air quality network of their potential impact on human health, visibility and climate. The objective of this study is to investigate variations and trends in TSP in the Klang Valley Region and to identify the main factors affecting the variation in TSP concentrations. This analysis used daily data collected from Malaysian Meteorological Services for Petaing Jaya station monitoring TSP data for the period 1977-2002. On daily average basis, annual, seasonal, monthly and weekly variations and trends in TSP concentrations are presented. Linear regressions were performed of the annual average TSP over the 1977 through 2002. The slope of the regression line in annual average decreased in TSP in order of -0.977 and statistically significant at 0.05 level. This suggests that whatever control measures have been applied are effective in reducing TSP concentrations. TSP concentrations in the Klang Valley Region showed seasonal variation, with the higher concentration during southwest monsoon season (dry season) and lower concentrations during rainy season. The causes of highest TSP concentrations during southwest monsoon season due to lack of rainfall and the stable atmospheric conditions, which reduce the ability of atmosphere to disperse the pollutants. The weekly pattern of TSP concentration exhibits a downward trend from Tuesday (maximum) to Sunday (minimum). This weekly cycle in TSP gives the indication that the main sources of the particulates in this area are from human activities rather than natural source

Vocabulary learning through vocabulary scrapbook

For the last 25 years, the field of English language teaching has witnessed significant responses to the incorporation of vocabulary learning in the language classroom. Vocabulary learning has been viewed as central to language learning and being of critical importance to the typical language learner. According to Coady (1997), there is a general agreement among vocabulary learning advocators that the heart of communicative competence is lexical knowledge. Such shift in emphasis in the field of ELT, followed by continuous research on vocabulary learning, have shed light on, and have provided valuable information about what to do and what to focus on. All these imply that the teachers in the language classrooms can utilise many interesting and creative techniques in vocabulary teaching and learning. A project called Vocabulary Scrapbook was introduced to the first semester students at Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia France Institute with the aim to enrich students’ vocabulary inventories via specific vocabulary learning strategies. This paper describes how the principles underlying vocabulary learning are put into practice in the project, the problems faced by the teachers and students in carrying out the project, and the effectiveness of the project in improving students’ inventories of words and phrases. A survey carried out after the project was completed revealed the students’ positive reception of the project – viewing it as a useful tool in learning and enriching their vocabulary

Effects of Macroeconomic Variables on Stock Prices in Malaysia: An Approach of Error Correction Model

This paper attempts to examine the short-run and long-run causal relationship between Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) and selected macroeconomic variables namely inflation, money supply and nominal effective exchange rate during the pre and post crisis period from 1987 until 1995 and from 1999 until 2007 by using monthly data. The methodology used in this study is time series econometric techniques i.e. the unit root test, cointegration test, error correction model (ECM), variance decomposition and impulse response function. The findings show that there is cointegration between stock prices and macroeconomic variables. The results suggest that inflation, money supply and exchange rate seem to significantly affect the KLCI. These variables considered to be emphasized as the policy instruments by the government in order to stabilize stock prices.Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, Money Supply, Nominal Effective Exchange Rate, ECM

A Conceptual Model: The Impact of Sociodemographic on Coronary Heart Disease

The paper aims to examine the conceptual model on the impact of sociodemographic towards coronary heart disease. There is still limited study on the association between cost of living particularly the cost of food and housing and its impact on coronary heart disease. Therefore, this study incorporates five essential sociodemographic attributes namely, cost of food, children education cost, housing cost, smoking habit and gender. The study provides greater understanding on how the cost of living and lifestyle may give impact to coronary heart disease. It may provide the awareness among the regulators as the society faces burden of high cost of living. The burden may threaten the Malaysians quality of life particularly the lower income group

Economics of Thai koi (climbing perch, Anabas testudineus) farming in pond in Bangladesh

With the high growth and productivity, Thai koi has opened up a new horizon of pond culture in Bangladesh. However, its growth varied widely year to year causing fluctuations in production. This study was undertaken to explore the farm insight practices in an economic viewpoint by framing a total of 149 farmers from Mymensingh district in Bangladesh. The study analyzed the farm profitability and other farming practices based on a per hectare basis for the three feed categories and determine the feed contribution to production. Among variables, feed alone experienced 73% of the gross production costs, implies a greater influence of feed on production. Though, the gross cost was higher, hence, the cost of producing per kg fish was the lowest for the floating feed. The farm income also varied with the variation of input costs among the feed brands and the performance of floating feed was found to be outstanding. Furthermore, floating feed yielded the best performances in terms of feed conversion ratio or daily mean weight gain of fish. Although, the initial investment is higher with the floating, feed farmers can earn much additional returns from the extra investment compared to other feed technologies. Generally, with an average revenue of fish was US$1.59 kg-1 and cost of US$ 1.38 kg-1, Thai koi production is considered to be a profitable agri-business. Finally, the outlook for the Thai koi farming could be very optimistic in filling the upcoming demand of fish, thus greatly improved human nutrition and food security by removing the problems and constraints are identified

Stochastic modeling of production risk and technical efficiency of Thai koi (Anabas testudineus)farming in Northern Bangladesh

Thai koi is one of the high commercially valued farm fishes which have expanded tremendously in the northern part of Bangladesh. However, despite its impressive growth in the initial years, output of the industry is highly volatile across different years and farms. This research, following the Just and Pope framework, has made use of Kumbhakar’s (2002) extended stochastic frontier model (SFM) to estimate production risk and technical efficiency (TE) in Thai koi farming. Results show that feed is the most important input significantly influencing production. Zeolite and pesticide appear to be risk-reducing, while fingerlings, labor, feed and salt turn out to be risk-increasing inputs. The inefficiency model indicates that labor and pond area significantly reduce the technical inefficiency. Feed, fingerling and lime also act as TE-improving factors. Education of farmers improves TE, while experience, training and frequency of water change do not impact the TE. The mean TE scores are 0.73 and 0.96 for the flexible risk estimate and conventional SFM estimates, respectively. TE values appear to become exaggerated when production risk is excluded from the model. SFM recognizes that risk is involved in Thai koi farming that causes lower TE

Design and Preliminary Testing of Demand-Responsive Transverse Rumble Strips

Transverse rumble strips are common practice to alert drivers by engaging their auditory and tactile senses in addition to visual senses by traffic signals. However, continuous exposure to noise and vibration by transverse rumble strips often results in diminished effectiveness and erratic behaviors, leading to additional safety challenges. In response, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips were developed as traffic safety countermeasures that reduce unnecessary noise and vibration associated with transverse rumble strips by incorporating active control of the rumble strips. Rather than staying static, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips are activated based on the presence of pedestrians, at predesignated times, or in response to abrupt changes in traffic flow. To evaluate the effectiveness of demand-responsive transverse rumble strips, the research team assessed noise and vibration data, both inside the vehicles and on the roadside, for various types of vehicles traveling at different speeds. The test data indicate that demand-responsive transverse rumble strips produced noticeable in-vehicle noise and vibration that could alert drivers to downstream events. Furthermore, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips generated sufficient noise to alert roadside pedestrians to vehicle presence but at low enough level to be considered as acceptable for a residential neighborhood use. Accordingly, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips could address the challenges that static transverse rumble strips face, by providing a design with relatively limited noise while enhancing safety

Effect of separation length on dual fibre Bragg gratings

This paper will investigate the transmission series of dual FBGs when the separation length between two FBGs is varied from 0.5 cm to 5.5 cm. The transfer matrix 2×2 is applied to complete the work. The introduction of separation length affects the transmission spectrum, indicated by the numbers of minimum dip values. Result shows that increasing the separation length between two FBGs lead to the formation of phase shift and increases the number of minimum transmission dip

Half- and quarter-sweeps implementation of Finite-Difference Time-Domain method

The propagation, diffraction, scattering, penetration and interaction phenomena of electromagnetic waves are governed by the well known Maxwell's equations. The applications of Maxwell's equations can be found in many disciplines in science and engineering particularly in antenna design and analysis. Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) is a popular numerical simulation technique for solving problems related to Maxwell’s equations. Recently, there is other formulation that can potentially be used to solve Maxwell’s equations in source free region. The new formulation, namely the scalar Wave-Equation Finite-Difference Time-Domain (WEFDTD), is numerically and mathematically equivalent to the conventional FDTD. Unlike the conventional FDTD, the scalar WE-FDTD allows computing any single field component without the necessity of computing other field components. Therefore, significant savings in the computational time and memory storage can be achieved. In this paper, we presented the explicit formulation of the scalar WE-FDTD for free space wave propagation on one dimensional model problem using full-sweep, half-sweep and quarter-sweep approaches which successfully implemented for solving elliptic problems. We analyzed and compared the performance of the scalar WE-FDTD with all approaches to the conventional FDTD method in terms of the computational accuracy and simulation time. The results found that the proposed formulation significantly reduced the computational time of the method but posed less accuracy as compared to the conventional FDTD method