An Islamic Reading of Moral Issues in Malay Novels

This thesis centers on reading modern Malay literature as a site for understanding the Malay dilemma in upholding their religious beliefs against both traditional cultural beliefs and modernization brought about by westernization. Using a sociological approach within an Islamic framework, the study investigates how the Malay authors depict Malay characters who transgress Islamic teachings. The analysis particularly follows the guidelines of the three Islamic principles: Belief, Law and Moral Conduct. At the same time, it explores the social struggles of the Malays with morality within the contexts of themes such as poverty, pervasive folk culture, religious conservatism, unscrupulous middlemen and irresponsible leadership. The works selected are English translated works originally written by A. Samad Said, Shahnon Ahmad and Khadijah Hashim. The three authors are representative writers of their time who are considered to have applied their creativity to foreground Malay as a resilient ethnic group in the face of adversity and social struggles. The research suggests that Malay characters in the selected novels represent Malays who have an increasing lack of knowledge in Islam, leading readers to understand that Malay Muslims have mostly transgressed the Islamic teachings. This may due to the fusion between culture and religion in traditional Malay society, and is mirrored by the emergence of modern hybrid values practiced by contemporary Malay society in the advent of westernization and in the face of hardship. Thus, studies on modern Malay literature which use the Islamic approach give a better picture of Malay social and religious struggles

The Perspective of Leader-Member Exchange and Its Relation with Workplace Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior among Nurses

Context: Leader-member exchange captures the impact of nurses’ perceptions of support from their supervisors’ high-quality relationships, which may promote extra-role behaviors, enabling increased job satisfaction and workplace empowerment and nurses` organizational citizenship behavior.Aim: Assess the perspective of leader-member exchange and its relation with workplace empowerment and organizational citizenship behavior among nurses. Methods: A descriptive correlational design was used to achieve the aim of the study. This study was conducted at Benha University Hospital in general medical and surgical units. A Convenient sample consisted of 190 nurses who were working in the study setting, as mentioned earlier. Three tools were used to collect the data; Subordinate (LMX-MDM) survey portion, Condition of Work Effectiveness Questionnaire (CWEQ), and Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale. Results: The findings of this study indicated that more than half of nurses (54.7%) reported that they had a high-quality relationship with their supervisors, and 71.1% of nurses had a moderate level of workplace empowerment. Also, more than half of nurses (51.1%) had a moderate level of organizational citizenship behavior.Conclusions: There was a highly statistically significant positive correlation between the total score of leader-member exchange and total workplace empowerment, total organizational citizenship behavior. Also was a highly statistically significant positive correlation between total workplace empowerment, total organizational citizenship behavior. The study recommended that hospital management needs to focus on involving staff nurses in the political processes in an organization and keep them informed about significant changes in the organization and have a protective attitude toward it

POISSON TRANSMUTED LINDLEY DISTRIBUTION

The main purpose of this paper is to introduce a new discrete compound distribution, namely Poisson Transmuted Lindley distribution (PTL) which offers a more flexible model for analyzing some types of countable data. The proposed distribution is accommodate unimodel, bathtub as well as decreasing failure rates. Most of the statistical and reliability measures are derived. For the estimation purposes the method of moment and maximum likelihood methods are studied for PTL. Simulation studies are conducted to investigate the performance of the maximum likelihood estimators. A real life application for PTL is introduced to test its goodness of fit and examine its performance compared with some other distributions

Perception towards pedagogical agents and their effects on self-regulated learning and performance in physics among Malaysian form 4 students / Shafilla Subri, Nora Sofia Mohamed Yuran and Dr. Shahriman Zainal Abidin

The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions toward pedagogical agents and the effects of pedagogical agents on self-regulated learning (SRL) and performance. This study employed the 4 x 2 factorial research design and the first factor was the method of instruction involving online lessons that offered four different types of agents. The second factor was student achievement based on the latest school assessment in physics. The independent variable was the types of agents chosen by the students while the dependent variables were perceptions toward the agents, levels engagement based on SRL and performance in a physics test. The sample of this study consisted of 80 Form Four science students from a rural school. The study found that there were no significant differences in learning support, friendliness, and engagement support between the agents and there were no significant differences in performance in physics by the types of pedagogical agents. For SRL, there were significant differences for the dimensions of organization and critical thinking by types of pedagogical agents but there were no significant differences for rehearsal, elaboration and meta-cognitive self-regulation

Synthesis of Novel Series of Phthalazine Derivatives as Potential Antitumor Agents

A novel series of phthalazine derivatives bearing isoindol-1,3-dione moiety were synthesized by treating 2-[4-(4-chlorophthalazine-1-yl)phenyl]-1H-isoindole-1,3-(2H)-dione 3 with various chemical reagents.The newly synthesi- zed compounds were characterized on the basis of their spectral (1H NMR, 13C NMR, Ms, IR) analyses. In vitro, most of the synthesized derivatives were screened for their antitumor activity against HepG2 cells using MTT assay. Compounds 11, 18 and 19c showed the most potent cytotoxic effect concluded from their IC50 values 217.4, 240.3 and 234.5 µg/ml respectively. Key Words: Phthalazin-1-(2H)-One; chlorophthalazine; isoindol-1,3-dione;  antitumor activity

Modal pattern stability factor as a figure of merit for characteristic modes

This paper is a postprint of a paper submitted to and accepted for publication in Electronics Letters and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. The copy of record is available at the IET Digital Library.This Letter proposes the use of a modal pattern stability factor (MPSF) parameter to quantify the pattern stability associated to characteristic modes (CM). The proposed parameter can be used as a figure of merit for CM associated to arbitrary-shaped structures, aiding the antenna design process. This parameter can be used (together with other modal parameters) to optimise the geometry of a radiating element in order to improve the radiation pattern stability in a desired range of frequencies. Two examples are presented for analysis. First, MPSF for the CM of three ring antennas with different width are analysed, showing how pattern stability of CM depend on this geometrical parameter. Secondly, three metallic plates with different shapes are analysed in terms of MPSF, in order to assess the stability of the CM for each geometry.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness under project TEC2013-47360-C3-3-P, and by Generalitat Valenciana under project GV/2015/065.Antonino Daviu, E.; Mohamed Mohamed-Hicho, N.; Cabedo Fabrés, M.; Ferrando Bataller, M. (2016). Modal pattern stability factor as a figure of merit for characteristic modes. Electronics Letters. 52(20):1658-1659. https://doi.org/10.1049/el.2016.1926S16581659522

Designing Slot Antennas in Finite Platforms using Characteristic Modes

(c) 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.[EN] In this paper, the application of the Theory of Characteristic Modes for the design of narrow-in-width open slot antennas embedded in finite platforms is investigated. Purely magnetic and electric characteristic modes (CM) of a slot etched in both an infinite and a finite ground plane are analyzed, with the aim to provide a physical understanding of the slot behavior and its interaction with the metallic ground plane. Instead of traditional CM analysis, an alternative approach is proposed, which consists in dividing the design procedure into the separate and complementary analysis of purely magnetic and electric CM. Based on this analysis, some guidelines for the design of open slot antennas are provided, and a simple and compact narrow-in-width wideband open slot antenna is designed. Simulations and measurements are presented for the optimized slot antenna, showing an impedance bandwidth of 47.48% with a very stable radiation pattern.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Project TEC2016-78028-C3-3.Mohamed Mohamed-Hicho, N.; Antonino Daviu, E.; Cabedo Fabres, M.; Ferrando Bataller, M. (2018). Designing Slot Antennas in Finite Platforms using Characteristic Modes. IEEE Access. 6:41346-41355. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2847726S4134641355

A novel low-profile high-gain UHF antenna using high-impedance surfaces

A novel wideband low-profile planar antenna design based on the use of a high-impedance surface (HIS) is presented for digital television (DTV) reception in the UHF band. The proposed design is based on a wideband monopole antenna in close proximity to an artificial ground plane, composed of an array of square metal loops at the top, an air gap and a ground plane at the bottom, without grounded vias. Low-cost substrates are employed in the design: rigid PVC for the antenna and foamed PVC for the artificial ground plane. The advantages of the proposed design for DTV applications are high gain, low profile, light weight, low cost and large bandwidth. Details of the proposed antenna design are described, and measurements together with a comparison to a conventional antenna with PEC ground plane are presented.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under Projects TEC2010-20841-C04-01, TEC2013-47360-C3-3-P, and CSD2008-00068.Mohamed Mohamed-Hicho, N.; Antonino Daviu, E.; Cabedo Fabres, M.; Ferrando Bataller, M. (2015). A novel low-profile high-gain UHF antenna using high-impedance surfaces. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters. 14:1014-1017. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2015.2389274S101410171