Energy efficiency in green building materials application for low-energy indoor eco-friendly / Anas Zafirol Abdullah Halim, Mohd Fareh Majid and Muhammad Naim Mahyuddin

World environment climate has changed toward unpredictable weather where average global temperature has increased up to 0.74oC since 1906 until 2005 [1]. This increment is an indication of more heat from the sun is penetrated to our primary protector which is the ozone layer. Due to this scenario, the secondary protector in the forms of the buildings should play major roles in giving comfort to the human. This is where the thermal conductivity of the building material becomes an important matter to study. Thermal conductivity or k-value of solid material describes the ability of heat being transferred through conduction. High k-value describes the material as highly conductive from one point to another. In other words, high k-value material easily allows the heat transfer to pass through it, as such indicating that this is not a good property for building material. The design thickness is very crucial where it will impact the cost of producing green materials. Thicker brick uses more amount of material and hence, it increases the production cost. The requirement on heat resistivity is very important for a building to prevent the building to be hot and uncomfortable. Unlike the clay brick wall and concrete wall, the U-value for green material wall is very low and it can block the entry of large amounts of heat and thereby cooling the buildin

Is a Nominee a Trustee or a Beneficiary? A Study on the Islamic Legal Maxim “In Contracts Effect is Given to Intention and Meaning and not Words and Forms” and Its Relevance to the Nomination Concept and Practice in the Administration of a Muslim’s Estate in Malaysia.

In a sale transaction, parties to the contract are allowed to pronounce an offer using words which do not indicate a sale. He may use the word such as hibah in the offer as long as the nature of the contract is exchange. Nomination is a means to expedite the process of the administration of a deceased Muslim’s estate. It is commonly practiced in financial institutions such as insurance and takaful companies, Pilgrimage Fund and Employee Provident Fund. An issue arises as regard to the status of nominee, as a trustee or beneficiary. A fatwawas issued by the National Fatwa Committee in 1973 stating that a nominee acts only as a trustee. However, the decisions of the civil courts and the Shari`ah court show that a nominee could be a beneficiary. This research is undertaken to examine the Islamic legal maxim and its relevance to the principle of nomination in Malaysia. Here, even though it is a nomination form and the nominee appointed is merely a trustee according to the 1972 fatwa, the wordings of the nomination might indicate a different connotation

Complete whole genome sequencing of Vibrio parahaemolyticus strain UMP001VA, isolated from sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota from Malaysia harbouring blaCARB-33 gene

Pathogenic strain of Vibrio parahaemolyticus found in marine and coastal ecosystems can cause infections in marine animals. Increasing antibiotic resistance reported in Vibrio species may be linked to environmental contamination. Here, we present a 4.99-Mbp complete genome sequence of V. parahaemolyticus strain UMP001VA, a Gram-negative bacterium that was isolated from the gut content of a sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota collected from Pulau Rhu, Terengganu, Malaysia. The whole genome sequencing was performed using hybrid de novo assembly using Illumina and the Oxford Nanopore Technology platforms. The genome analysis reported a total length of 4,991,208 bp of V. parahaemolyticus genome sequences with 45.3 % GC content. The functional annotation of the genome showcased that 56 genes of V. parahaemolyticus were associated with virulence, disease, and defence function. Virulence factors found in H. leucospilota were related to T3SS1, together with the presence of blaCARB-33 antibiotic resistance gene conferring ampicillin, piperacillin, and amoxicillin drug resistance were reported. The presence of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes reveals the considerable pathogenic potential of V. parahaemolyticus in sea cucumbers. Therefore, the whole genome sequencing presented here provides a fundamental genome insight for future assessment of V. parahaemolyticus in marine organisms

Defuzzification of intuitionistic Z-Numbers for fuzzy multi criteria decision making

Z-numbers and intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are both important as they consider the reliability of the judgement, membership and non-membership functions of the numbers. The combination of these two numbers produce intuitionistic Z-numbers which need to be defuzzified before aggregation of multiple experts’ opinions could be done in the decision making problems. This paper presents the generalised intuitionistic Z-numbers and proposes a centroid-based defuzzification of such numbers, namely intuitive multiple centroid. The proposed defuzzification is used in the decision making model and applied to the supplier selection problem. The ranking of supplier alternatives is evaluated using the ranking function based on centroid. In the present paper, the ranking is improved since the intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFN) are integrated within the evaluations which were initially in form of Z-numbers, considering their membership and non-membership grades. The ranking of the proposed model gives almost similar ranking to the existing model, with simplified but detailed defuzzification method

Stock market reaction to corporate real estate divestitures and acquisitions during the global financial crisis

Real estate divestitures and acquisitions (D&A) are conducted as part of corporate restructuring. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap on abnormal stock market returns (AR) toward D&A activities during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in a developing country. Malaysian listed non-real estate companies that conducted D&A during the GFC are used as sample. Event study is applied to determine AR surrounding D&A announcements within (-10day, +10day) event window. Results for both D&A announcements shows insignificant AR on and around announcement date (-1 to +1). For pre-announcement, divesting (acquiring) companies obtain negative (positive) AR, signifying that the market does not favor (favor) divestitures (acquisitions) due to leakage of information. The outcome of post-announcement proves that divesting companies continue to experience negative ARs, although most divesting companies were paid premium prices. However, acquiring companies experience significant and negative post-announcement AR. This is probably due to the price premium which most acquiring companies paid exceeding valuation for their acquisitions. In summary, the market disapproves divestitures in general and acquisitions of real estate assets exceeding their valuations during economic recessions

Shariah risk management process for Islamic financial institution in the context of shariah governance framework 2010

Shariah compliance is the backbone of Islamic banks. As an institution established within the ambit of Shariah, Islamic banks are expected to ensure that their aims, activities, operations and management adhere to the Shariah principles and values. Failure to comply with Shariah, will expose Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) to Shariah non-compliance risk. Subsequently, it is an essential duty of the IFIs to manage Shariah risk properly. In order to effectively manage the risk vulnerability of the IFIs, proper measures for risk management have been put in place in different frameworks that are either domestic or international based.In the Malaysian context, IFIs are guided by relevant regulations such as the Shariah Governance Framework 2010, IFSB principles and Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 with regards to Shariah risk management. This research examined the regulatory requirements of the Shariah risk management process for Islamic financial institutions that operate in Malaysia, in the context of the Guidelines on Shariah Governance Framework 2010 issued by the Central Bank of Malaysia. The paper discusses the concept of “risk”, “Shariah risk” and “Shariah non compliant risk” in the context of Islamic Financial Institutions and also examines the process adopted by the Malaysian IFIs in managing the Shariah risk. The hypotheses that the paper seeks to establish are that there are differences between the concept of Shariah risk and Shariah non-compliant risk; and that the Shariah risk management process adopted by the IFIs are different than the conventional risk management process due to the unique features and requirements of the IFIs

Pixel Value Graphical Password Scheme: K-Means as Graphical Password Fault Tolerance

Pixel value access control (PVAC) was introduced to deliver a secure and simple graphical password method where it requires users to load their image as their password. PVAC extracts the image to obtain a three-octet 8-bits Red-Green-Blue (RGB) value as its password to authenticate a user. The pixel value must be matched with the record stored in the database or otherwise, the user is failed to authenticate. However, users which prefer to store images on cloud storage would unintentionally alter and as well as the pixel value due to media compression and caused faulty pixels. Thus, the K-Means clustering algorithm is adapted to fix the issue where the faulty pixel value would be recognized as having the same pixel value cluster as the original. However, most of K-Means algorithm works were mainly developed for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) which having opposite characteristics from PVAC. Thus, this study was aimed to investigate the crucial criteria of PVAC and its compatibility with the K-Means algorithm for the problem. The theoretical analysis is used for this study where the suitable characteristics of K-Means are analyze based on PVAC requirements. The compliance analysis might become a referencing work for digital image clustering techniques adaptation on security system such as image filtering, image recognition, and object detection since most of image clustering works was focused on less sensitive image retrieval

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

When Halal and Haram meet the Haram prevails?: an analysis of the maxim and its application in contemporary issues

The question of Halal and Haramis most pertinent element to determine the legitimacy of an act. All act of man must be in accordance with what has been prescribed by the Lawgiver. Men are responsible for what they do in this world. Therefore all Muslims are obliged to ensure that their action must be in line with the teaching of the Shari‘ah. With reference to this, in cases where the ruling is clear about the lawful and unlawful of certain items and practices the problem does not arise. However, issues in which there is a mixture of lawful and unlawful elements, careful consideration must be taken before issuing any legal verdict. Among the guidelines followed is the maxim “When Halal and Haram meet the Haram prevails”. The article intends to investigate the extent to which this maxim is applicable