Digitization and sustainability of local collection : an observation of digitization activities among Malaysian universities libraries

Malaysian academic libraries have responded well to the government’s IT agenda. They are among the first group of libraries to embark on digitization projects. This paper attempts to discuss the types of materials digitized, guidelines, policies and provision for access to the digitized materials. It also discusses some of the issues and challenges in this process of enriching the local digital content. An appropriate training module with practical guidelines and policy is recommended to ensure continuity and sustainability of these projects

Leadership and Innovation on Performance of Private Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia

The contribution of private higher education institutions (PHEIs) in Malaysia is important to the higher education industry. Among the roles of PHEIs are providing a pathway to local and international students to the tertiary level of education, contributing towards making Malaysia an international and highly reputable hub for higher education as well as limiting the flow of our intellects to foreign countries. However, there has been a major concern over the performance of PHEIs. Due to the volatility of the higher education landscape, many local PHEIs are facing with serious issues and challenges which affect their organizational self-sustainability. If the issues and challenges are not seriously addressed, it could impede the growth of PHEIs as well as become the barriers to PHEIs to serve their roles in Malaysia higher education sector. This conceptual paper provides some insights into the issues and challenges of PHEIs in Malaysia. It also identified leadership and innovation as the critical success factors for PHEIs organizational self-sustainability and proposed that these two independent variables are tested in future research

Development of five port reflectometer for reflection based sensing system

Five-Port Reflectometer is a microwave passivedevice where it implements the six-port algorithm to measure the complex reflection coefficient of material under test (MUT) through reflection on interface between MUT and microwave sensor. Initially, the Six-Port Reflectometer (SPR) was introduced by Engen in 1977 and major component used insix-port technique was designed in many types. When Riblet and Hanssonproposed ring junction with 5 ports only on 1981. Six ports ring junction has been reduced to five ports. In this paper, a dual frequency five ports ring junction circuit was designed, simulated and fabricated for reflection based sensing system. The fabricated five port ring junction is operating at frequencies of 0.64 GHz and 2.42 GHz. The measured result had good agreement with the simulated results for dual frequencies in terms of magnitude and phase

Design And Analysis Of Linear Switched Reluctance Motor

This paper proposes a linear switched reluctance motor (LSRM) to replace the conventional serving that is used in food and beverage (F&B) applications such as a pack of sushi and carbonated drinks. This conventional method is no longer practical as it requires a lot of space which will affect costing and productivity. It's also has another disadvantage, in which it needs frequent maintenance of the rotational motor, gear, and limit switches. Therefore, this research is about the design and analysis of linear switched reluctance motor (LSRM) for F&B applications. The main objective is to design a LSRM and the finite element method (FEM) is used to simulate the result. The result showed that the 24s/16p was the best model for linear switched reluctance motor (LSRM) design. The model had average force (F_avg) of 28.36 N for input current (I) of 1A. To conclude, this paper provides a guideline in designing the LSRM for F&B application

Keperluan mewujudkan jawatan pembantu bengkel di tiga buah sekolah menengah teknik di daerah Johor Bahru: satu tinjauan

Kajian ini merupakan satu tinjauan untuk mengetahui keperluan mewujudkan jawatan pembantu bengkel di tiga buah sekolah menengah teknik di daerah Johor Bahru. Seramai 70 orang guru dari semua kursus yang mengajar amali di bengkel telah dipilih sebagai responden kajian ini. Kajian ini dijalankan dengan mengedarkan satu set soal selidik kepada responden. Data telah dianalisis secara deskriptif dengan menggunakan program Statistical Package For Social Sciences ( SPSS ) 13.0 for windows dan secara manual. Kajian rintis telah dijalankan terhadap 10 orang guru yang mengajar matapelajaran amali di Sekolah Menengah Teknik Juaseh Kuala Pilah di Negeri Sembilan untuk menguji kebolehpercayaan instrumen kajian dan nilai didapati adalah 0.853. Tujuan projek ini dijalankan secara ringkasnya ialah untuk mengetahui sejauhmana keperluan jawatan baru ini dapat membantu menyelesaikan beberapa masalah yang berhubungkait dengan pengurusan bengkel, pengurusan masa, beban tugas guru dan juga pengawalan disiplin pelajar. Segala maklumat mengenai tanggapan guru-guru terhadap aspekaspek yang dikaji diperolehi melalui soal selidik yang telah dilengkapkan oleh mereka. Cadangan yang diberikan mengikut aspek yang dikaji adalah pihak sekolah perlu peka iaitu memikirkan kepentingan mewujudkan jawatan baru dalam membantu menyelesaikan masalah yang dihadapi oleh guru-guru. Hasil penganalisian terhadap data ini menunjukkan bahawa secara keseluruhannya responden mempunyai tanggapan positif terhadap cadangan mewujudkan jawatan pembantu bengkel di sekolah menengah teknik

The health seeking trajectories of malaysian women and their husbands in delay cases of breast cancer: A qualitative study

The aim of this study was to assess why women delay in getting treatment (i.e. surgery) for breast cancer, as well as to explore on what type of issues are involved in such delay cases. Basic interpretative of qualitative methodology was applied to construct the reality of delay phenomena, and its interaction with social worlds. Six themes were identified: new conception of breast cancer treatment, psychological defenses, health support system, symtomatology experience, model and barriers. The delay issue in breast cancer requires attention as a multidimensional problem as this will facilitate more comprehensive and effective intervention to reduce delay

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) production from palm oil mill effluent (POME) using mixed culture in sequencing batch reactor (SBR)

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are raw materials for production of biodegradable plastics, generated by a range of microbes, cultured under different nutrients and experimental conditions. PHAs usually lipid in nature, are accumulated as storage materials in the form of mobile, amorphous, and liquid granules. Currently, the main limitation for PHAs production is cost of production. Biodegradable plastics from renewable resources, such as PHAs, are alternative to petroleum-based plastic materials, which are non-biodegradable. The aim of this study was to develop a biological process to produce PHAs from palm oil mill effluent (POME). A fed-batch was utilized for fifteen months for POME particularly to optimize the PHAs production under various experimental conditions. The POME cultivation was studied under six experimental conditions, such as COD:N:P ratios, HRT=SRT, air flowrates, substrates feeding rates, anoxic/aerobic and microaerophilic-aerobic. The production rate of PHAs under feast-famine regime occurred rapidly between three to four hours during the substrate uptake rate. The results showed that a short chain fatty aci(especially acetic acid) from POME was considered the most optimum carbon source for PHAs production in the study. The optimum experimental condition for high PHAs production from POME recorded in the cycling of microaerophilic-aerobic experiments with a combination of COD/N:COD/P ratio (490:200 g/g), long retention time (6 to 10 h) and slow feeding rate (20 ml/min). This study showed that the increased of PHAs production would not necessarily enhance the removal of total organic carbon (TOC), phosphate (PO4-P) and nitrate (NO3-N). TOC removal was recorded at range 18 to 33%, while PO4-P and NO3-N removal did not show any consistent trend. A statistical design of experiment was conducted to optimize the PHAs production and organic removal (TOC, PO4-P and NO3-N). Results from response surface method (RSM) analysis, both COD/N:COD/P ratio and air flowrate showed significant influence on PHAs production, TOC, and NO3-N removal. It can be concluded that the PHAs storage capacity was higher two to three times in aerobic compared to anoxic conditions

Parenting stress among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder: the need of stress management guidelines and policy

This concept paper reviews the issue of parenting stress in mothers and fathers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and highlights the need for stress management guideline and policy for these parents in Malaysia. Many studies have shown that parents of children with ASD are experiencing a high level of stress. Despite this issue, there has not been any local measures to improve the well-being of the parents. In Malaysia, there is no policy or standard guideline for parents of children with ASD, hence maintaining the risk of mental health cases among them. In order to overcome this issue, this paper reviewed the Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) problem-focused strategies used by parents of children with ASD from previous studies. The strategies mentioned in this paper had been empirically proven as reducing the parents’ stress level. This paper also recommends the strategies to be included in a local policy to help the parents manage their stress

Conceptual Framework: Factors Affecting Learner Performance and Cognitive Load in Educational Multimedia Learning

The spread of COVID-19 has compelled educational institutions to make the transition to online communication. It has limited teaching and learning to utilize a fully online learning mode. However, the problem with online learning is that it is entirely dependent on technological devices and the internet: teachers and students with poor internet connections face the problem of access to online learning. These challenges will affect the effectiveness of educational multimedia in the learning process and how students will be able to grasp the educational lesson to remain focused throughout the lesson. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors affecting cognitive load and learner performance and proposes a conceptual framework of factors affected in educational multimedia learning underlying the interrelationship between cognitive load and learner performance