The impact of corporate governance characteristic on tax compliance among public listed companies in Malaysia

Corporate income tax is the largest source of revenue to Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM). Hence, the increase of tax non-compliance among corporate taxpayers concerns IRBM and tax authorities globally as the government loses its major revenue which adversely affects the economy. Tax evasion of large corporations using accounting manipulations implies the potential role of corporate governance against tax non-compliance. Therefore, this study attempts to determine the impact of corporate governance characteristic to tax compliance among corporate taxpayers specifically the public listed companies in Malaysia. This study was conducted on 111 tax audited cases of public listed company listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia that had been finalised by IRBM for year of assessment 2013 and 2014. Data from their annual report were then used to determine the corporate governance characteristic of each public listed companies namely (1) board composition (2) independent director service tenure (3) separation of chairman and Chief Executive Officer (4) audit committee competency (5) non-audit service by external auditor and (6) sourcing internal audit function. Next, three models of tax compliance were developed specifically filing, reporting and payment compliance to better capture different compliance issues. Logistic regression results revealed that director service tenure has significant impact on tax compliance where public listed company with an independent director who have been in service for more than 9 years are more likely to be filing compliant. Whereas public listed company with an independent director who have been in service for less than 9 years are payment compliant. However, this study only sampled a small number of public listed companies. Therefore in order to generalize the findings due care should be exercised. This research findings contributes an added value to tax literature and tax authorities on the impact of corporate governance characteristic to specific type of tax compliance of public listed companies in Malaysia

Refeeding syndrome in a Malaysian intensive care unit: an assessment of incidence, risk factors and outcome

Objective: Refeeding hypophosphataemia (RH) is characterised by acute electrolyte derangement following the start of nutrition. Complications associated with this syndrome include heart failure, respiratory failure, paraesthesia, seizure and death. We aim to assess its incidence, risk factors, and outcome in our local intensive care unit (ICU). Methods: This is a preliminary analysis prospective observational study at the ICU of Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan Kuantan. The study was registered under the National Medical Research Register (NMRR-14-803-19813) and has received ethical approval. Inclusion criteria includes adult admission longer than 48 hours who were started on enteral feeding in the ICU. Chronic renal failure patients and those receiving dialysis were excluded. RH was considered if plasma phosphate was less than 0.65 mmol/l within 7 days of ICU admission. Results: A total of 108 patients were recruited into the study. Of this, 51 (47.2%) had RH. Patients with RH had higher SOFA score compared to those without RH (7.1±3.0 vs 5.7±3.4, p=0.02). There were no differences in the APACHE II score (16±6 vs 15±6, p=0.30), and in the NUTRIC score (2.9±1.7 versus 2.7±1.7, p=0.63) between patients with and without RH. Patients with RH had lower albumin concentration compared to those without RH (23 vs 25, p=0.04). There were lower trend of magnesium, calcium and potassium concentration, however these were not statistically significant. All four patients with hypomagnesaemia (less than 0.5 mmol/l) had RH (p=0.04). There were no differences in mortality, length of hospital or ICU stay and duration of mechanical ventilation. Conclusion: Refeeding hypophosphataemia is common, occurring in almost half of ICU admission. Patients with RH had higher organ failure score, and lower albumin level. There were no differences in the NUTRIC score and in short-term outcomes. Further studies could evaluate the association between RH and long-term outcome

Dysphagia caused by an aberrant right subclavian artery

An aberrant right subclavian artery is the commonest aortic arch anomaly. Majority of them were asymptom- atic. An aberrant subclavian artery is a rare cause of dysphagia in adults. This condition is also known as dys- phagia lusoria. We report a case of dysphagia in a 49-year-old woman from an aberrant right subclavian artery. Diagnosis of her condition was made with barium swallow and MDCT (multidetector computed tomography) scan. She was managed conservatively

Dysphagia lusoria caused by an aberrant right subclavian artery

Dysphagia of vascular origin is termed dysphagia lusoria and it is relatively uncommon. Amongst the vascular causes, aberrant right subclavian artery is the most common. This case illustrates the usefulness of imaging in the investigation of dysphagic patient for an accurate diagnosis and appropriate management of the condition

Design and analysis of a boosted pierce oscillator using MEMS SAW resonators

This paper highlights the design and analysis of a pierce oscillator circuit for CMOS MEMS surface acoustic wave resonators. The boosted pierce topology using two, three-stage cascode amplifiers provides sufficient gain to counteract the high insertion losses of - 65 dB at 1.3 GHz of the SAW resonator. For accurate prediction of the oscillator’s performance before fabrication, circuit design utilized touchstone S2P measurement results of the MEMS SAW resonator, which provides better results compared to the conventional method of using equivalent circuit simulations. This circuit was designed using Silterra’s 0.13 lm CMOS process. It has low power consumption of 1.52 mW with high voltage swing 0.10–0.99 V. All simulations were conducted using Cadence Design Systems and results indicate that phase noise of 92.63 dBc at 1 MHz

Finite element simulation of miniaturized ZnO/Si SAW sensor for rapid detection of dichloromethane gas

Air quality control is very crucial as poor air quality can lead to chronic respiratory organ diseases. Hence, detection of numerous toxic and hazardous gas is utmost significance. A low cost and high sensitivity gas sensor is crucial to monitor the excessive presence of the dangerous gas that can harm human’s health. In recent years, various type of gas sensors have been developed for various applications such as medicine, industry, automotive and environmental monitoring. One of the harmful gas is the dichloromethane gas. Dichloromethane (DCM) gas, CH2Cl2 is widely used in industry due to its organic characteristics. However, the excessive of the amount of the gas could bring harm to human’s health. Hence, a lot of sensing devices have been developed including surface acoustic wave (SAW) gas sensor. This paper presents the 2D finite element simulation of miniaturized ZnO/Si SAW gas sensor for rapid detection of DCM gas. Using a powerful finite element analysis software known as COMSOL Multiphysics, the gas sensor is modelled according to the specific criteria using 2D approach. The effect of different thickness of ZnO thin film as piezoelectric layer is investigated on the SAW propagation characteristics. The resonance frequency of simulated ZnO/Si SAW gas sensor is 300 MHz with wavelength of 11.67μm. The shift in frequency is the measurement used to measure the changes occured to sense the presence or absence of DCM gas. The shift of resonance frequency is observed in the absence and presence of dichloromethane gas. This work has high potential to realize single chip gas sensor due to its silicon compatibility for rapid detection of harmful gas for environmental monitoring

MSCT of huge abdominopelvic masses in female: a pictorial illustration

Introduction: The differential diagnoses for huge abdominopelvic masses in female are extensive. Many of these masses arise from the reproductive organs such as uterus, cervix and ovaries. Majority represents the commonly encountered entities such as uterine fibroid, dermoid tumour, ovarian cyst and ovarian cancer. However, some of the masses may arise from other organs such as the gastrointestinal system, urinary system, adjacent soft tissue, retroperitoneum or from metastasis. With large mass, it is a challenge for radiologists to determine the site of origin and to differentiate between these tumours. Case series We retrospectively reviewed MSCT performed for huge abdominopelvic masses. The CT findings were correlated with intra-operative findings and final HPE report. This pictorial illustration emphasize on differential diagnosis of huge abdominopelvic masses. Conclusion Familiarity with clinico-pathologic and imaging features is important and helpful for correct image interpretation of common and uncommon abdominopelvic masses

Flexible PVDF thin film as piezoelectric energy harvester

This aim of this paper is to study the potential of Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) polymeric piezoelectric film as an energy harvester for daily application use. PVDF offers several advantages over other piezoelectric materials such as high chemical strength and stability, high piezoelectric properties and biocompatible. Several investigations were carried out in this project which comprises of simulation, functionality test and application test. For functionality test, the highest voltage produced for a single film PVDF is 0.368 V which charges up a capacitor to 0.219 V in one minute. The highest voltage produced by multiple PVDF films is 1.238 V by stacking 10 films of PVDF in parallel which charges up to 0.688 V in one minute. For application test, 5 pieces of PVDF films were attached to a glove to generate some voltage during fingers bending activity. The highest output voltage recorded is 0.184 V which stores 0.101 V in a capacitor after 200 times of hand bending and releasing. As a conclusion, PVDF has a good potential as an alternative energy for daily application use. Combination of PVDF energy harvester system with proper power optimization circuit will open up rooms of research opportunities in energy harvester system with promising prospect in self-powered wireless electronics devices for Internet of Things application

Material characterization of a doped triangular silicon nanowire using raman spectroscopy

A top-down silicon nanowire fabrication using a combination of optical lithography and orientation dependent etching (ODE) has been developed using a doped Silicon-on Insulator (SOI) as the starting substrate. The use of ODE etchant such as potassium hydroxide (KOH) and Tetra-Methyl Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH) is known to create geometrical structures due to its anisotropic mechanism of etching. The SOI is doped with an n-type dopant (phosphorus) and the doped silicon nanowire is then characterized using Raman Spectroscopy. Due to the changes in the silicon structure, the result shows that the highly doped silicon nanowire has a wider Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) as compared to the undoped silicon substrate

Magnetically plucked piezoelectric energy harvester via hybrid kinetic motion

Piezoelectric energy harvesting is a possible breakthrough to reduce the global issue of electronic waste as they can efficiently convert the ambient vibration to the electrical energy without any additional power. This work presents the design and development of a piezoelectric energy harvester that is capable of transforming vibration from ambient sources into electricity. It focuses on a magnetically plucked piezoelectric beam as an alternative to the mechanically induced harvesters, as the latter are subjected to wear and tear. A prototype comprising of a 40 mm PZT-5H piezoelectric beam with a permanent magnet mounted at one end of the beam, as well as a series of permanent magnets of same types attached on an eccentric rotor was developed along with a National Instruments® data acquisition device. Mean output voltages of 2.98 V, 1.76 V and 0.34 V were recorded when the eccentric rotors were slowly rotated at 8.4 rad/s with increasing distances of 5 mm, 7.5 mm and 10 mm respectively, between the magnets on the rotor and the beam. These results have proven that voltage could also be generated by magnetically plucking the piezoelectric beam, and by reducing the distance between magnets, the amount of voltage generated will be higher. The outcome of this work signifies the possibility for implementation of energy harvesters that are capable of powering electronic devices from hybrid kinetic motion, with a reduced risk of equipment fatigue. © 2019, International Islamic University Malaysia-IIUM