Windstorm Resilient Rural Housing: Lessons learned in Temerloh, Malaysia

In 2019 alone, Temerloh district located in central Peninsular Malaysia has been hit by unpredictable wind storms in localised areas which damaged more than 185 rural homes.  This research set out to assess the structural vulnerabilities of damaged rural houses to severe winds in Temerloh and lessons learned from windstorm damage through field surveys of damaged homes between March 2019-August 2019 and supplemented by district-level post-windstorm reconnaissance reports prepared by Malaysia Civil Defense Force (APM) and other information gathered from local government. Results indicate poor performance of structural and non-structural building components in resisting high wind loads due to inadequate design, under-strength of failed building materials and defective construction details. The results of this study could have important implications for government agencies, NGOs, builders, and engineers in assisting rural communities in reconstructing windproof resistant homes and planning for future windstorm risk management efforts specially catered to homeowners in Temerloh.Keywords: Rural housing; Windstorm; Resilience; Malaysia eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i12.181

Discourse, Politeness and Ethnic Sensitivities in Malaysian Parliament

The Malaysian Parliament comprises the King (Yang Di-Pertuan Agung), the Senate (Dewan Negara) and the House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat). The Parliament is the highest legislative authority that formulates laws applicable to the nation as a whole. It is responsible for drafting bills, passing federal laws, making amendments to the constitution, examining the government’s policies and, approving federal government expenditure and new taxes. Participation in parliamentary debates is exclusively meant for Members of Parliament (MPs) who have competed and won in the general elections at their respective parliamentary constituencies. The Parliament serves as a forum to debate and discuss issues pertaining to national interests

University of Malaya's emerging scholars leadership advancement (Emerald) programme: Implications on new lecturers' early career development

Interest on the professional development of an academic in academia has been growing over the years (Akerlind, 2005). Research indicates that there are various academics preparation programmes preparing Early Career Faculty, i.e. young, new and novice academics, for tasks in academia. This study explores the effectiveness of one of the training programme for new lecturers - Emerging Scholars Leadership Advancement (Emerald) programme held by UM's Academic Enhancement and Leadership Development Centre (ADeC) since August 2014. It is a training programme for new academic staffs who have successfully obtained their doctorates via UM's faculty recruitment and training schemes (i.e. Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputera (SLAB) and Skim Latihan Akademik IPTA (SLAI)). Findings were analysed from three focus group discussions with 12 Emerald participants as well as two stakeholder meetings with their deans and departmental heads. Further post-training in-depth interviews with four alumni from the programme are underway. Earlier findings suggest that although Emerald participants seemed to appreciate the learning opportunities and networking possibilities gained from Emerald, the programme was also burdensome time-wise, and somewhat irrelevant to their daily duties as new faculty. Relevance of some of the programme's components to the daily duties as new faculty were questioned. In addition, the programme's lack of gains in terms of contributing to their efforts toward tenure was also highlighted. It is therefore vital to examine the ECF's reception of the programme, and its perceived benefits and drawbacks in providing relevant training for new lecturers in the early months of their academic career. These findings provide basis for ongoing revisions to the programme, wherein teaching and learning, supervision, and research training modules were reviewed and amended. In addition, changes were made to the programme briefing session as well as its practical attachments modules. Most importantly, the Emerald programme structure underwent modifications cut the programme duration from 60 days to approximately 20 days with training that focused on the core duties of new lecturers. This study contributes to existing efforts to improve the training of ECF by chronicling the development and subsequent ongoing enhancements of the ECF training programme at Malaysia's leading public university