DOES COVID-19 DRIVE ROBOT ACCEPTANCE? AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF SERVICE ROBOT IN HOSPITALITY

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the acceptance of robots as social distancing agents and to understand how guests may respond to the application of service robots in a hospitality setting as a way to achieve a zero-COVID-19 travel experience. This study contributes to the current knowledge in the area of service robot application by providing a better insight of, and guests response to, service robot operation in hotels. Design/Methodology/Approach – To obtain information from participants, the semi-structured interview method was used. articipants were hotel guests who had stayed in hotels where robots performed human tasks. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings – The findings suggest that robots are perceived as effective social distancing agents even though the participants experienced instances of robot incompetency during their stay at a hotel with robotics-based services. Participants also believe that with improved smart robot services, hotels can resume operations and guests can stay in hotels during the pandemic period without unnecessary worries. Originality – In light of the findings, some future research directions are suggested for researchers to further understand and explore the wider application of robotics in social distancing

Mechanical Properties and Morphology of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch-Polypropylene Composites: Effect of Adding ENGAGE TM 7467.

Composites of polypropylene and oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) were prepared by melt blending using ENGAGE™ 7467 (polyolefin elastomer) as an impact modifier. ENGAGE™ 7467 is a polyolefin elastomer. The mechanical properties and morphology of composites have been studied. Tensile tests showed that addition of ENGAGE™ 7467 improved the elasticity of the composite, thus reducing the stiffness of the composites but no significant changes on tensile strength. The impact strength was also improved with the addition of ENGAGE™ 7467, but no significant effect on flexural test was observed. This result indicates that the ENGAGE™ 7467 forms a flexible interphase around the OPEFB particles, giving the composites better impact strength for both notched and unnotched samples without degrading the fiber and matrix interaction. The ENGAGE™ 7467 composites characterized using Fourier transmission infrared spectroscopy showed that there is no shifting of peaks, indicating that the addition of ENGAGE™ 7467 does not affect the interaction between matrix and filler

Modeling of Optimizing Multi-hole Drilling Toolpath Distance with Multiple Tool Dimension

Multi-hole Drilling with Multiple Tool dimensions (MDMT) is a crucial technique in today's industry, allowing manufacturers to satisfy the increasing demand for precise and high-quality components while adopting the latest technological advancements and environmental standards. This paper introduces and validates a computational model for MDMT, offering numerous advantages over conventional drilling methods, including enhanced efficiency, accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility. The computational model was developed for the MDMT problem using the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) concept to measure the total toolpath distance. The Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Genetic Algorithm (GA) are applied to solving 12 cases of MDMT problems with varying numbers of holes, classified as small, medium, and large, using MATLAB software R2022b. Note that the algorithms were evaluated based on their solution quality, with lower fitness values indicating better performance. Overall, GA performed the best across most hole configurations, achieving the optimal fitness value in 5 out of 12 cases (small, medium, and large), ACO performed better in 4 out of 12 cases (small and medium) and PSO performed better in 3 out of 12 cases (medium and large). The research emphasizes the potential of multi-dimensional tools for accomplishing intricate drilling tasks. Other than that, this paper contributes to the existing literature on MDMT and highlights the importance of multi-dimensional tools in modern manufacturing. Future research could optimize the proposed computational model for various materials and drilling scenarios in MDMT

THE INFLUENCE OF SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE, SPIRITUAL CONGRUENCE AND ACCOUNTING LITERACY ON ATTITUDE OF PURCHASING HALAL PRODUCT TOWARDS INTENTION TO PURCHASE AMONG GENERATION ALPHA

Background and Purpose: In recent years, studies and interest in human behaviour in relation to the halal industry have been growing. The process of understanding the reasons for planning behaviour intention is not an easy path. Intentions are provoked by an individual’s attitude which effect on how individuals making per purchase decision (Blackwell, Miniard, & Engel, 2001; Viksne, Salkovska, Gaitniece, & Puke, 2016). Human beings are complex and this complexity helps in having contradictions in an individual’s attitude.   Theory Planned Behavior (TPB) was created based on the theory of social psychology, and congruity theory was used as a theoretical framework for creating the current conceptual model.   The main objective of the study is to examine the relationship between Spiritual intelligence (SQ), Spiritual Congruence (SC) and Accounting Literacy (AL) towards attitude and intention to purchase Halal product among the Generation Alpha. Methodology: To provide insight from this generation, the current study conducted a survey within the students of Faculty Economics and Muamalat, USIM for five programs offered. The survey reached 181 respondents, those who had experience in consuming halal products. The research instrument which consists of 31 scale items were utilized using a Likert scale and were then administered via questionnaire administered approach of using SPSS.   Findings: Based on the finding it indicates that only SQ and SC have positive and significant relationship towards attitude which is represented by 0.006 for SQ and 0.022 for SC. However, AL does not reflect significant relationship with attitude.   Contributions: The implication of the finding indicates that the education structure which embedded the Islamic elements could influence the attitude of the students towards Halal products. The finding could be the interest of the authorities and bodies related to Halal industry to create awareness among Alpha generation.   Keywords: Spiritual intelligence, spiritual congruence, accounting literacy, halal, generation alpha.   Cite as:  Azreen Jihan, M. H., Nurul Nazlia, J., Muhamad Azrin, N., Muhammad, M., & N Alia Fahada, W. A. R. (2023). The influence of spiritual intelligence, spiritual congruence and accounting literacy on attitude of purchasing halal product towards generation alpha. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(2), 73-94. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss2pp73-9

Performance Evaluation of Centralized Reconfigurable Transmitting Power Scheme in Wireless Network-on-chip

Network-on-chip (NoC) is an on-chip communication network that allows parallel communication among all cores to improve inter-core performance. Wireless NoC (WiNoC) introduces long-range and high bandwidth radio frequency (RF) interconnects that can possibly reduce the multi-hop communication of the planar metal interconnects in conventional NoC platforms. In WiNoC, RF transceivers account for a significant power consumption, particularly its transmitter, out of its total communication energy. This paper evaluates the energy and latency performance of a closed loop power management mechanism which enables transmitting power reconfiguration in WiNoC based on number of erroneous received packets. The scheme achieves significant energy savings with limited performance degradation and insignificant impact on throughput

DTAPO: Dynamic thermal-aware performance optimization for dark silicon many-core systems

Future many-core systems need to handle high power density and chip temperature effectively. Some cores in many-core systems need to be turned off or ‘dark’ to manage chip power and thermal density. This phenomenon is also known as the dark silicon problem. This problem prevents many-core systems from utilizing and gaining improved performance from a large number of processing cores. This paper presents a dynamic thermal-aware performance optimization of dark silicon many-core systems (DTaPO) technique for optimizing dark silicon a many-core system performance under temperature constraint. The proposed technique utilizes both task migration and dynamic voltage frequency scaling (DVFS) for optimizing the performance of a many-core system while keeping system temperature in a safe operating limit. Task migration puts hot cores in low-power states and moves tasks to cooler dark cores to aggressively reduce chip temperature while maintaining high overall system performance. To reduce task migration overhead due to cold start, the source core (i.e., active core) keeps its L2 cache content during the initial migration phase. The destination core (i.e., dark core) can access it to reduce the impact of cold start misses. Moreover, the proposed technique limits tasks migration among cores that share the last level cache (LLC). In the case of major thermal violation and no cooler cores being available, DVFS is used to reduce the hot cores temperature gradually by reducing their frequency. Experimental results for different threshold temperatures show that DTaPO can keep the average system temperature below the thermal limit. Affirmatively, the execution time penalty is reduced by up to 18% compared with using only DVFS for all thermal thresholds. Moreover, the average peak temperature is reduced by up to 10.8◦ C. In addition, the experimental results show that DTaPO improves the system’s performance by up to 80% compared to optimal sprinting patterns (OSP) and reduces the temperature by up to 13.6◦ C

Morphological characteristics of black aspergilli isolated from clinical wastes

The present study aimed to recognize the microscopic characteristics of black aspergilli species which exhibit similar characteristics on culture media. Forty eight black aspergilli isolates were obtained from clinical wastes and purified using single spore technique on six different culture media. The ultrastructure of fungal conidiophore and spores was detected by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The fungal isolates were identified within five species included A. niger, A. tubingensis, Aspergillus section Nigri, A. violaceofuscus, A. neoniger. Besides, two isolates identified as Aspergillus sp. strain no. 39, Aspergillus sp. strain no. 53 appear as new strains based on the structure of conidiophore and spores. The fungi species have similar culture characteristics. However, SEM observation demonstrated that they have quite different conidiophore and spores morphology. The study revealed that the microstructure of the fungal spores and conidiophores plays an important role in the identification of fungi species based on the phenotypic method

Lean manufacturing best practices in SMEs

Last two decades had witnessed explosion of researches into the area of manufacturing improvement such as lean manufacturing, total quality management, total productive maintenance and their application within various manufacturing companies such as automotives, electronics, plastics components and etc.It was proven that lean manufacturing was considered as the best manufacturing system in the 21st century.A comprehensive literature review was conducted to get necessary lean information.The review is focused on SME definitions and characteristics.This is followed by reviewing the lean practices and discusses them based on SMEs’ capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present feasible lean practices for lean implementation in SMEs.There are seventeen lean practices which could be considered are feasible and relevant to the SME characteristics.The proposed practices were based on three categories; least investment, feasible to apply in SME and recommended by researcher

Effect on Operating Parameters Towards Metastable Zone Width of Carbamazepine-Saccharin Co-Crystal

Co-crystal is believed can improved physicochemical properties of an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APis). Understanding in co-crystallization process is needed in order to have desirable crystal habits for materials. One of the studies that are important in designing co-crystallization process is kinetics study. In this research, carbamazepine (CBZ) and co-former saccharin (SAC) has been used to study the metastable zone width (MSZW) of the CBZ-SAC co-crystal in ethanol solution. The MSZW is studied by varying concentration of CBZ, mo) ratio values of SAC to CBZ and cooling rates used by polythermal method. Crystallization temperature and dissolution temperature is used to determine the maximum temperature difference ~Tmax using N)'vlt's equation

Wheat is an emerging exposure route for arsenic in Bihar, India

In arsenic (As) endemic areas of south-east Asia, where a subsistence rice-based diet is 19 prevalent, As exposure from food is mainly focused on rice intake. However, consumption of 20 wheat is substantial and increasing. We present a probabilistic assessment of increased cancer 21 risk from wheat-based food intake in a study population of rural Bihar, India where As exposure 22 is endemic. Total As in wheat grains (43.64±48.19 μg/kg, n=72) collected from 77 households 23 across 19 villages was found to be lower than reported As in wheat grains from other south-24 east Asian countries but higher than a previous study from Bihar. As concentration in wheat flour was used for risk estimation, bearing in mind that it was the 26 flour obtained after indigenous household processing of the grains that was used for making 27 the home-made bread (chapati) which contributed 95% of wheat intake for the studied 28 population. Interestingly, while 78% of the surveyed participants (n=154) consumed rice every 29 day, chapati was consumed every day by 99.5% of the participants. In contrast to previous 30 studies, where As concentration in wheat grain was found to be lower than the flour due to the 31 removal of the bran on grinding, we did not find any appreciable lowering of arsenic in the 32 wheat flour (49.80±74.08 μg/kg, n=58), most likely due to external contamination during 33 processing and grinding. Estimated gender adjusted excess lifetime cancer risk of 1.23x10-4 for 34 the studied rural population of Bihar indicated risk higher than the 10-4-10-6 range, typically 35 used by the USEPA as a threshold to guide regulatory values. Hence, our findings suggest As 36 exposure from wheat-based food intake to be of concern not only in As endemic areas of rural 37 Bihar but also in non-endemic areas with similar wheat-based diet due to public distribution of 38 the wheat across India