The Application of Epstein’s Model in the Implementation of Career Transition Programme for Students with Learning Disabilities

The career transition programme is a programme implemented to prepare students with special needs (SSN) to face future working environment. Parents are among the factors contributing to the successful completion of SSN’s career transition programme. This survey was conducted to identify the level of involvement of SSN parents in the implementation of career transition programmes in schools. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire consists of 48 items with five points Likert scale. This questionnaire was developed based on six elements of Epstein’s Parental Involvement Model: i) parenting, ii) communication, iii) decision making, iv) learning at home, v) collaboration with the community and vi) voluntary assistance. This study involved 30 respondents comprising parents of SSN who had undergone a career transition programme at Special Education Integrated Program (PPKI) at four secondary schools in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. The data were analysed descriptively using SPSS software. The findings show that parents’ involvement is high in terms of communication and voluntary assistance while their involvement in parenting, decision-making, home-based learning, and collaboration with the community is at moderate level. Parents’ education level was found to have no significant relationship with the level of parental involvement except for communication and voluntary aspects. The findings of this study can give some insights to policy makers to increase parents’ level of involvement in the context of planning and the implementation of programmes to support SSN’s readiness for the career realm. Parents are encouraged to improve their advocacy skills and awareness on the importance of their roles in the career transition

Hand-arm vibration disorder among grass-cutter workers in Malaysia

Prolonged exposure to hand-transmitted vibration from grass-cutting machines has been associated with increasing occurrences of symptoms and signs of occupational diseases related to hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). Methods. A cross-sectional study was carried out using an adopted HAVS questionnaire on hand-arm vibration exposure and symptoms distributed to 168 male workers from the grass and turf maintenance industry who use hand-held grass-cutting machines as part of their work. The prevalence ratio and symptom correlation to HAVS between high and low–moderate exposure risk groups were evaluated. Results. There were positive HAVS symptoms relationships between the low–moderate exposure group and the high exposure group among hand-held grass-cutting workers. The prevalence ratio was considered high because there were indicators that fingers turned white and felt numb, 3.63, 95% CI [1.41, 9.39] and 4.24, 95% CI [2.18, 8.27], respectively. Less than 14.3% of workers stated that they were aware of the occupational hand-arm vibration, and it seemed to be related to the finger blanching and numbness. Conclusion. The results suggest that HAVS is under-diagnosed in Malaysia, especially in the agricultural sectors. More information related to safety and health awareness programmes for HAVS exposure is required among hand-held grass-cutting workers

Comparison of Soot Particle Movement Based on Crank Angle

In a diesel engine, soot was produced due to incomplete fuel combustion in a combustion chamber. Some of this soot sticks to the cylinder wall and interferes with lubricant oil. This soot causes the lubricant oil to contaminate and this increases its viscosity. Contamination of lubricant oil is one of the major causes of engine wear. Therefore, the focus of this study is on soot movement in diesel engine that is the initial step to avoid contamination of lubricant oil. This work uses the data of the formation of soot particles from Kiva-3v obtained from previous investigation and then simulated it by a Matlab routine. Kiva-3v produced velocity vectors of the soot, fuel, temperature, pressure and others. Matlab routine uses trilinear interpolation and fourth order Runge Kutta method in order to calculate soot movement in a combustion chamber. In addition, the influence of drag force is considered in the calculation to achieve a higher accuracy. The objective of this study is to compare soot particle movement between 8° ATDC and 18° ATDC. Results show that 8° ATDC has a high risk to contaminate lubrication oil in certain location compare to 18° ATDC

Sports law: students’ perception of the relevance of learning legal aspects in sports and recreation amongst sport students in UiTM Negeri Sembilan, Seremban Campus / Mohd Syahril Ibrahim, Nur Haidar Hanafi and Nor Fadzlina Nawi

Sports constitute an important cultural phenomenon and in modern day sports now have its own complex rules, are highly organized and may involve various areas of law. These laws affecting sports and recreation management include liability for sporting injury and damage, sports and media law, professional athletes’ contract of employment, and the issue of doping involving performance-enhancing drugs. Having said that, in Malaysia, generally, there is still little awareness of how law affects sports and recreation management not only among the public, but also the athletes. The Faculty of Sports Science and Recreation (FSR) of UiTM in acknowledging the importance of these areas of law in sports, designed their programs’ curriculum to include “Legal Aspects in Sports and Recreation” and “Law Relating to Sports and Recreation”, as compulsory subjects for students enrolled in their Diploma in Sport Studies and Degree in Sports Management. This research is conducted to ascertain the students’ perception on the relevance of learning these subjects towards enhancing the knowledge on sports law in their related field of works. The paper presents the findings of the students’ perceptions on the relevance of learning these subjects in their respective programs at the FSR in UiTM, Seremban Campus

Optimization of zinc electrodeposition from zinc-air cell discharge performance

Porous zinc electrodes were prepared from an acidic, chloride electrolytic bath for application in zinc-air microbattery. The aim is to produce a high specific surface area zinc coating in order to obtain high storage capacity and high limiting current density of the microbattery. The electrolytic bath consists of zinc chloride as the metal source and ammonium chloride as the supporting electrolyte. The concentration of the supporting electrolyte was varied from 1 to 6 M, while the concentration of zinc chloride was fixed at 2 M. The electrodeposition was performed at a constant current density of 100mAcm-2. No electrolyte agitation was attempted. SEM micrographs revealed unique cross-stitch porous network morphology of zinc electrodeposits. As the ammonium chloride concentration increases, flake microstructure appeared and later becomes predominant. A thin alkaline zinc-air cell was fabricated utilizing the various qualities of the zinc electrodeposits. The effect of the qualities of the zinc electrodeposits on the cell discharge performance was monitored. The zinc-air microbattery of 1 cm2 area x ca. 305 µm thick was able to produce a maximum limiting current density of 35 mA cm-2 and possessed a specific capacity of 327 mAh g-

A review on complex event processing in RFID system

The motivation of this paper is to review some of the leading research issues encountered by current Complex Event Processing (CEP) techniques. General CEP system undoubtedly laid a certain degree of uncertainties due to some unforeseen reasons such as inaccurate measurements through network failures or unpredicted interference from the system failures. A variety of traditional to the most current techniques was disclosed with some features, which are rarely considered in typical CEP problems. Besides, this paper also discusses a broad review of modern and future solutions, including techniques beyond mainstreams in complex event processing. Based on the critical analysis of prior techniques and solutions, therefore, we further the research and propose a solution for a new type of event processing engine especially in RFID for future reference

Molecular markers: a potential resource for ginger genetic diversity studies

Ginger is an economically important and valuable plant around the world. Ginger is used as a food, spice, condiment, medicine and ornament. There is available information on biochemical aspects of ginger, but few studies have been reported on its molecular aspects. The main objective of this review is to accumulate the available molecular marker information and its application in diverse ginger studies. This review article was prepared by combing material from published articles and our own research. Molecular markers allow the identification and characterization of plant genotypes through direct access to hereditary material. In crop species, molecular markers are applied in different aspects and are useful in breeding programs. In ginger, molecular markers are commonly used to identify genetic variation and classify the relatedness among varieties, accessions, and species. Consequently, it provides important input in determining resourceful management strategies for ginger improvement programs. Alternatively, a molecular marker could function as a harmonizing tool for documenting species. This review highlights the application of molecular markers (isozyme, RAPD, AFLP, SSR, ISSR and others such as RFLP, SCAR, NBS and SNP) in genetic diversity studies of ginger species. Some insights on the advantages of the markers are discussed. The detection of genetic variation among promising cultivars of ginger has significance for ginger improvement programs. This update of recent literature will help researchers and students select the appropriate molecular markers for ginger-related research

E-complaint system for internal customer in Royal Malaysian Police Force using formal language method

The effectiveness to respond to customers' feedback also depends on an effective workflow. By having an effective method and workflow, the management can response immediately, hence improves the quality of services and facilities offered. The aim of this paper is to analyze the development of a complaint management system that uses formal language theory methodology. The E-Complaint System is been developed to use by the internal staff in the Royal Malaysian Police Force (PDRM). Before starting to develop the system, we try to model the system's flow using two type of method, i.e. the Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA) and Non-deterministic Finite Automaton (NFA). The selected method to be used is the DFA, because it has a clear direction of each step. Among the function in the systems are Complaint Form, Review Complaint Status, Manage Complaint Process and the Email Form

Genetic divergence and heritability of 42 coloured upland rice genotypes (Oryza sativa) as revealed by microsatellites marker and agro-morphological traits

Coloured rice genotypes have greater nutritious value and consumer demand for these varieties is now greater than ever. The documentation of these genotypes is important for the improvement of the rice plant. In this study, 42 coloured rice genotypes were selected for determination of their genetic divergence using 25 simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers and 15 agro-morphological traits. Twenty-one out of the 25 SSR primers showed distinct, reproducible polymorphism. A dendrogram constructed using the SSR primers clustered the 42 coloured rice genotypes into 7 groups. Further, principle component analysis showed 75.28% of total variations were explained by the first—three components. All agro-morphological traits showed significant difference at the (p�0.05) and (p�0.01) levels. From the dendrogram constructed using the agro-morphological traits, all the genotypes were clustered into four distinct groups. Pearson’s correlation coefficient showed that among the 15 agro-morphological traits, the yield contributing factor had positive correlation with the number of tillers, number of panicles, and panicle length. The heritability of the 15 traits ranged from 17.68 to 99.69%. Yield per plant and harvest index showed the highest value for both heritability and genetic advance. The information on the molecular and agro-morphological traits can be used in rice breeding programmes to improve nutritional value and produce higher yields

Evaluation of expression of OsAMT1;1 under different nitrogen concentration

The NH4+ and NO3− are N sources available for plant nutrition in most soils. The NH4+ role in plant nutrition has most likely been underestimated. This study provides basic information on the expression of OsAMT1;1 that is needed in understanding factors contributing to upland rice Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) at the molecular level. The objective of this studies is to evaluate OsAMT1;1 expression on landraces with different NUE under different nitrogen level. To further understand the molecular basis of responsiveness of these two contrasting upland rice landraces to different N inputs at the N uptake level, a laboratory experiment was conducted to study how members of ammonium transporter gene family respond to different nitrogen conditions. Two upland varieties, Landrace III (high Nitrogen Use Efficiency) and Landrace I (low Nitrogen Use Efficiency) were grown in 4 nitrogen levels (0.05mM NH4NO3, 0.1mM NH4NO3, 1mM NH4NO3 and 2mM NH4NO3). Quantitative RT-PCR was used to study the expression of patterns of rice OsAMT1;1 genes. Results from this study showed that Landrace III has relatively higher expression of OsAMT1;1 compared to Landrace I for all treatments. Expression of OsAMT1;1 is clearly up-regulated in response to low-nitrogen treatment. Expression levels of OsAMT1;1 in high-NUE upland rice landrace was higher compared to low-NUE upland rice landrace. These results suggested, expression of OsAMT1;1 had certain degree of influenced in NUE of upland rice landraces