Factors affecting students participation in extra-curricular

Extracurricular activity is a complementary of the requirement and interest in the student academic development. Extracurricular learning styles can be implemented in the form of informal where it can provide effective learning experiences to the students. In extracurricular development, every activity has its own goals and interests that can influence the students to participate in the particular activities. Nowadays, students are more likely to engage or spending their time with unbeneficial activities or isolate themselves in the virtual world. Several studies have been conducted and found that there are factors influence or prevent the students from participating in the extracurricular activities they intended to. These factors have been categorical into three main constraints; structural constraints, intrapersonal constraints, and interpersonal constraints. These main constraints referred to many factors that can influence student participation in extracurricular activities

The role of heparin and heparin-binding growth factors in pre-eclampsia

The aims of this study tested the hypothesis that expression of heparin-binding growth factors (HBGFs) in normal placental development was altered in a specific pregnancy disorder preeclampsia. HBGFs bind to heparin, a glycosaminoglycan (GAG) affecting activity. I investigated the role of heparin and HBGFs in pathophysiology of pre-eclampsia. Placental tissue from a cohort study of 87 women was performed following uncomplicated pregnancy at term, but not in labour (TNL, n=26), preterm labour (PTL, n=17), following labour onset (TL, n=21), first trimester (FNL, n=4) and pre-eclampsia (PE, n=19). The HBGFs studied were vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), placental growth factor (PLGF), fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), heparin-binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF), midkine (MK), pleiotrophin (PTN), and cluster differentiation (CD105). The localisation of HBGFs and receptors VEGFR-1, /(sflt-1), PLGFR-1, VEGFR-2 and FGF2R-1 in placenta were detected. The expression of VEGF, PLGF, FGF2, HGF, PDGF, CD105 was confined to villous trophoblast, endothelial cells except for MK, HB-EGF and PTN was specifically to villous trophoblast. The total RNA production in human placentae samples (n=7) from PE and controls were analysed using qRTPCR. Placental expression of mRNA was extracted for primer assays of PLGF, FGF2, MK, PTN, and endogenous housekeeping gene as Succinate dehydrogenase complex subunit A (SDHA). FGF2 and SDHA mRNA expression was significantly different using Mann-Whitney U test. An in vitro villous trophoblast invasion model was performed with human fibrosarcoma HT1080 invasive cells (positive control), mouse embryonic fibroblast NIH/3T3 non-invasive cells (negative control) and immortalised human primary villous trophoblastic cell lines TCL-1.The greatest stimulation was by FGF2, PDGF-BB, HGF, MK and co-incubation with heparin enhanced these responses, except for PTN using the Mann-Whitney U test. Heparin’s role is indicated in mediating the effects of HBGFs. It’s suggests heparin therapeutic use in the treatment of pre-eclampsia

An Estimation of the Entropy for a Fréchet Distribution Based on Generalized Hybrid Censored Samples

In this paper, under generalized type-I hybrid censored samples; we derive the estimators for the entropy function of the Fréchet distribution. We also compare the introduced estimators in the sense of the relative mean squared error (RMSE) for various censored samples

Analysis load forecasting of power system using fuzzy logic and artificial neural network

Load forecasting is a vital element in the energy management of function and execution purpose throughout the energy power system. Power systems problems are complicated to solve because power systems are huge complex graphically widely distributed and are influenced by many unexpected events. This paper presents the analysis of load forecasting using fuzzy logic (FL), artificial neural network (ANN) and ANFIS. These techniques are utilized for both short term and long-term load forecasting. ANN and ANFIS are used to improve the results obtained through the FL. It also studied the effects of humidity, temperature and previous load on Load Forecasting. The simulation is done by the Simulink environment of MATLAB software

The efficiency of Islamic banks: empirical evidence from the Asian countries’ Islamic banking sectors

Abstract: The paper investigates the efficiency of the Islamic banking sectors in four Asian countries during the period of 2001–2006. The efficiency estimates of individual banks are evaluated using the non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. The results suggest that the Asian Islamic banks have exhibited mean technical efficiency highest of 86.5% at 2004 during study period suggesting mean input waste of 13.5%. This implies that the Islamic banks in the Asian countries could have produced the same amount of outputs by only using 86.5% of the amount of inputs they employed. The empirical findings suggest that during the period of study, pure technical inefficiency outweighs scale inefficiency in Asian countries banking sectors. Overall the results imply that during the period of study, although the Asian Islamic banking sectors have been operating at a relatively optimal scale of operations, they were relatively managerially inefficient in controlling their operating costs and utilising their resources to the fullest.Islamic banks; data envelopment analysis; DEA; Asia

Occupational safety and health practice: a study at rubber manufacturing industry by using hirarc

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) is a discipline with broad scope involving many specialized fields. The definition of safety is the state of being ‘safe’, condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types of consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other events which can be considered non-desirable. Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Engineers play their roles at workstations to ensure the safety and health of each staff is in good conditions with proper ergonomic condition. This study conducted occupational safety and health act study at Kenny Leather (M) Sdn Bhd. The site visit, observation and interview session were conducted. The objective of this study is to identify the current or potential hazard that might be occurred in the factory. This study also providing the suitable solution and precaution step towards the zero hazard for the factory for reducing the possible accidents or injuries. Some of the suggestion that has collected through data collected was carried out through site visit using Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA) and HIRARC form by interviewing several workers. As a result, this study gave recommendations to the company in order to practice the safe and no harm work practice and gives priority to the safety first

Work flow improvement at Kenny Leather (M) Sdn. Bhd.

Kenny Leather who was located at Merlimau Industrial Estate, Melaka driving force in the manufactures of leather. The company supply its product internationally and the product are well known globally due to their product’s quality and their commitment to give their best to the customer. Former world number one player of golf, Tiger Wood is among the user of hand glove that were made by this company. Kenny Leather has 200 workers and all of their workers are Malaysian. The managing director is Mr. Tadashi Fujisawa and main share partner is Kenny Co. Ltd. The company motto is ‘one for all and all for one’. Kenny Leather (M) Sdn Bhd is the factory processed all the material consists of leather. The nature of business is manufacturing leather gloves (for gloves), betting gloves, dress leather, cut leather and dyed sheep/goat skin leather. This factory is one of the biggest suppliers for leather material. In fact the former number one golfer in the world which is, Mr. Eldrick Tont Woods, known as Tiger Woods is using leather products made by the Kenny Leather. One company known as FootJoy which is the main company that sponsor Tiger Wood accessories for golfing is almost 80% was supplied by Kenny Leather

Characteristic qualities affecting landed house prices

The research was conducted to find the characteristics quality of houses in Malaysia. The aim of this research was to produce the ranking characteristics of house qualities and determining its weightages. The methodology used in this research was primarily by using the Delphi Method to ascertain characteristics quality and also Analytical Hierarchy Process to determine the ranking of the characteristics quality. Data collection gathered through a structured questionnaire that incorporates the element of Saaty’s Scale using variables outlined from review and interview. A theoretical framework of the research was established from this that will lead to future research model