Implementation of General Education Subject (MPU) in Malaysia: an overview

Human development encompasses a complete process of forming a knowledgeable, moral, skilled, competitive, and resilient human workforce. Human development has become the main focus and agenda of the country’s leadership to be realized primarily through the education system undergone by citizens’ children. In this regard, the Ministry of Education Malaysia has reviewed the curriculum for Compulsory Subjects (MPW) in all Higher Education Institutions in the country. Thus, the General Education Subject (MPU) has been introduced based on the branch of philosophy of knowledge, which involves humanities, pure sciences, and social sciences. However, with many students in a single lecture, the MPU course has its constraints. Some students consider this course as a subject that can be studied on their own. As a result, it is impossible to realizing future proof graduates. Therefore, this article aims to explain the current situation of implementing MPU courses in Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia. The paper is based on findings by reviewing a thorough literature review on the General Education Subject (MPU) courses. This research has applied the document analysis method by analyzing related documents for MPU courses. The data obtained are thematically analyzed via ATLAS.ti 8 software. The research finding has discovered four themes of the General Education Subject (MPU) implementation in Malaysia: its implementation, relevancy, impact, and teaching approach. Finally, the literature conclusion could be used as an initial guide for Higher Education Institutions to improve MPU courses’ implementation in producing future-proof graduates

Electrical Properties of A Novel Solid Biopolymer Electrolyte based on Algi-nate Incorporated with Citric Acid

In the present study, a novel solid biopolymer electrolytes (SBE) system has been introduced by doping citric acid into alginate polymer. The sample of alginate-citric acid SBE system was prepared via solution casting technique. By using Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), the electrolytes of alginate-citric acid has been analyzed from 5 Hz to 1 MHz achieved highest conductivity value at 20 wt.% of 5.49 x 10-7 S cm-1. The temperature dependence of various composition citric acid was found to obey the Arrhenius rules with R2~1 where all SBE system is thermally activated when increasing temperature. The dielectric studies of the alginate-citric acid SBE system showed a non-debye behavior based on data measured using complex permittivity (ε*) and complex electrical modulus (M*) at selected temperature where there are no single relation was found in new biopolymer electrolytes system

A Preliminary Study on Solving Knight’s Tour Problem Using Binary Magnetic Optimization Algorithm

The knight’s tour problem is a sub chess puzzle where the objective of the puzzle is to find combination moves made by a knight so that it visits every square of the chessboard exactly once. This paper proposes a model using Binary Magnetic Optimization Algorithm to solve the problem. Each particle represents a possible solution of the problem. A pair of 3 binary bits is used to represent a move made by the knight for each move. The numerical value for each move can be in the range of 0 to 7 according to the 8 possible moves that can be taken by the knight. The fitness of a particle is then calculated based on the number of legal moves it has taken starting from the first move. The proposed model has been tested using the standard 8x8 chessboard setup. A comparative performance study is done based on two updating rules of Binary Magnetic Optimization Algorithm: sigmoid & tanh functions. Results obtained show that the proposed model has a potential for further improvement