Blog-based online journals for English As A Second Language learners

The research on the use of blogs as online journals was carried out with a group of twenty five Form Four students in a secondary school in Kuantan, Pahang. The aim of the research is to find out the effects of blogs as a tool in developing writing in English as A Second Language. The instruments include questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and analysis of the blogs content. The research covered students’ perspectives of blogs as the medium for online journals, the effectiveness of blogs as a tool to assist students’ writing skill and to what extent blogs could help students to enhance their writing skills. From the findings, it is discovered that there is a positive impact on the development of students’ writing throughout the research as gained through the instruments. From the research, the students claimed that blogs is an interesting medium for them to write their journals as compared to writing in their log books. Blogs also could help them developed their writing skill in English Language; and through the various features in blogs, students were able to write more effectively

Model of leadership characteristics in addressing construction challenges

Failure of construction projects could be attributed from several challenges that emerged along the construction processes. These challenges are categorised as resources allocation, time, cost, quality, safety, project complexity, changes, uncertainties, and communication. It requires several approaches to handle these challenges and one of it is to have good quality of leadership that not rely on their authority. A study has shown that poor leadership contributed 67% to the project’s failure. Hence, this study was intended to develop relationship between leadership characteristics with construction challenges in avoiding project failure. This study was carried out based on quantitative approach that involved questionnaire survey using face-to-face technique with selected respondents at managerial level of G7 Contractor Company. The survey has resulted with 117 valid responses. Results from the survey analysis were applied to develop PLS-SEM relationship model which consisted of 43 leadership characteristics which are categorised into 4 groups and 9 construction challenges which is categorised into single group. The model was statistically validated with Goodness-of-Fit (GoF) value of 0.349 which is categorised as medium validating power. Based on the developed model, the most influential leadership characteristic group in handling the construction challenges is smart decision. While the most challenging construction challenges is safety management. To ensure that the model is applicable to the Malaysia construction industry, expert verification by selected construction experts was conducted and found that majority of the experts agreed on the model outcomes thus indicate that the model is suitable to the industry. Hence, it can be concluded that the study has uncovered the importance of leadership characteristics and its relationship with the construction challenges which fills the gap of study on Malaysia construction industry

Simulation of 1 x 2 OTDM router employing symmetric Mach-Zehnder switches

In high-speed all-optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) routers it is desirable to carry out data routing, switching, clock recovery and synchronisation in the optical domain in order to avoid the bottleneck due to optoelectronics conversion. The authors propose an optical switch based on all-optical symmetric Mach–Zehnder (SMZ) switching and investigate its characteristics. The proposed switch is to be used as a building block for a simple 1x2 OTDM router for asynchronous OTDM packet routing, where clock recovery, address recognition and payload routing are all carried out in the optical domain. Simulation and numerical results demonstrate that clock recovery, address recognition and payload routing are possible with small amounts of crosstalk. Also presented are simulation results for bit error rate (BER) performance for the 1x2 router. For a BER of 10e-9 the receiver sensitivity is -26 dB compared with baseline detection without a router of -38 dB. The proposed router displays great potential for use in ultrahigh- speed OTDM networks

Modelling of all-optical symmetric Mach-Zehnder switch with asymmetric coupler

Ultra high-speed optical network is developing rapidly as growing capacity demand in telecommunication system is increasing. In these networks, it is desired to carry out switching, routing and processing in optical domain to avoid bottlenecks of optoelectronic conversions. Optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) technique is one option to implement all optical networks. It provides a single data stream at a very high rate (>100Gbits/s) using a single wavelength. These networks will be based on optical packet switching. The success of these networks depends on how well switching and routing are being done at this very high speed. An all optical switch based on symmetric Mach-Zehnder (SMZ) with asymmetric coupler (60:40) is proposed. Its characteristics and switching window profiles will be investigated. The results show that symmetric Mach-Zehnder (SMZ) with asymmetric coupler gives a better contrast ratio rather than symmetric Mach-Zehnder (SMZ) with normal 50:50 coupler

Poverty Reduction in Cameroon, 1996-2001: The Role of Growth and Income Redistribution

This paper appeals to the Shapley Value decomposition rule to account for the retreat in the FGT class of poverty measures in Cameroon between 1996 and 2001. In particular, the paper examines the evolution of poverty in Cameroon, simulates budgetary outlays necessary to eradicate poverty assuming perfect targeting, and decomposes changes in poverty into growth and redistribution components. The ECAM I and ECAM II household consumption surveys collected by the Governments Statistics Office together with the software DAD4.4 were used to generate the results. The incidence, depth and severity of poverty retreated significantly the period under study. The growth component contributed significantly more in explaining the fall in levels of poverty than the redistribution component in both rural and urban areas. The overall situation however clouds regional tendencies, which attribute varying importance to the two factors. The indication, however, clearly portrays the important role to be attributed to growth if long term poverty reduction is valued high in the policy menu as articulated in Cameroon’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. The government needs to allocate more budgetary outlays in rural areas to fill the income gap relative to the poverty line. In spite of the importance of growth in eradicating poverty, it will be much more effective if it benefits the poor disproportionately.Poverty decomposition; Shapley Value; Household Surveys; Cameroon

Antenna representation in two-port network scattering parameter

This paper proposes a representation of antenna in two-port network s-parameter, by exploiting the analogy between the antenna and a two-port network, to produce a suitable method for evaluating antennas in system and circuit simulation. Complicated steps required by previous methods to determine an antenna-specific equivalent-circuit and its corresponding resistor, inductor, and capacitor values are avoided. Simulations results obtained for the circuit and system software confirms the validity of the proposed scheme

Pelan tindakan desa

Buku ini mengemukakan kaedah penyediaan pelan tindakan desa untuk mereka yang terlibat dalam pembangunan masyarakat desa khususnya Jawatankuasa Kemajuan dan Keselamatan Kampung (JKKK). Penyediaan pelan tindakan ini adalah berasaskan pendekatan pengupayaan yang memerlukan penglibatan aktif penduduk dan tidak bergantung kepada data dan maklumat kuantitatif. Penekanan diberikan terhadap pengetahuan yang berasaskan pengalaman dan perbincangan secara percambahan fikiran bagi mengeluarkan idea dan program tindakan pembangunan yang inovatif dan praktikal untuk dilaksanakan