Solar energy : dilemma and the way forward / Norhafizah Yusop ... [et al.]

Renewable energy plays important roles in supplying energy to the world since it able to reduce the demand of fossil fuels. Natural processes and minerals such as sunlight, wind, tide and geothermal heat describes renewable energy. Nowadays, the world is shifting to renewable energy sources due to several factors such as rising prices of oil and gas and scarcity. Theoretically, solar energy is the energy from the sun. Too expensive for mainstream market was the main factors that make solar technologies occupied on uncomfortable position. As time change, global warming and climate change began to emerge. Essentially, solar power can offer a greener, cheaper path to development.Furthermore, meeting rising energy demand with cost-effective new generation capacity is a critical challenge facing most developing countries. Review of literatures shows that it is a clear signal that something needs to be done about renewable energy to put the world on a better path to avoiding the impacts of climate change.Thus, Just in Time (JIT), one procurement mechanism and support schemes for clean energy such as solar energy seems to lead the charge. This research involved a literature search on the challenges of the solar energy and the way forward based on the frequency of the factors identified by past researchers. As a result, more effort is necessary to boost and further stimulate action towards a better understanding on the positive and negative effects of solar energy, which will result in greener, cheaper and better path of the current and future development

The contractors’ attributes for the construction project success / Mohd Hafiz Saberi ... [et al.]

The important contractor attributes for the construction project success are one of the main critical issues in the construction project. The contractor has challenges in term of additional knowledge and skills in order to achieve the successful project. The aim of this research is to identify the contractors’ attributes for the construction project success. The objective that has been established to achieve the aim of the study is to determine the important contractor attributes for the construction project success. The descriptive data obtained through questionnaire of 33 respondents from Project Manager, Engineer, Site Supervisor and Technical Assistant that employed with contractor G7. The data gathered was analysed using Statistic Package for Social Science (SPSS). There were adopted the analysis descriptive statistics technique using score mean and percentage. The result of this study indicated that the important attributes for the construction project success are financial, management or technical, past experience, past performance, health and safety, quality and resources attributes. The finding of this study can give a guideline to contractor to improve their attributes in order to achieve the successful project

Islamic education teachers' perception on their readiness in teaching elements of sexuality education

The purpose of this study is to examine the perception of Islamic Education teachers’ about their readiness for teaching elements of sexuality education in Islamic Education. The study demonstrated that Islamic Education teachers were highly ready to teach elements of sexuality education and the data showed level of readiness was intermediate (mean=4.70; sd=0.74). The inference analysis utilized the t-test and the One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The finding of the study identified some factors that hinder their readiness which are knowledge, personality and attitudes

Green approach in road construction / Suhaila Ali ... et al.]

Formation of road network involves various construction activities which may include deforestation that gives impact to the environment. Therefore road construction has indirectly affected the environment in countless ways and also has increased the destruction of the natural environment. As the environmental impacts of road construction activities become more apparent, green approach in road construction moves forward and gaining its momentum. A green approach can be defined as a process of planning, design and constructing using technology and concept at low cost in minimizing environmental impacts on communities and natural habitat. However, in the current road project, green approach is still new and sometimes contractors do not take this matter seriously. In this paper, the readiness and acceptability of contractors towards a green approach in road construction is studied. The data for this study was obtained through a set of questionnaire to targeted respondent and was analyzed by using SPSS software. From the study, it was found that green approach in road construction is being accepted and widely understood by a majority of main players in the construction industry but the implementation of the green approach has been found to be not widely carried out. From the analysis that has been carried out, the result reveals that the government should come out with the strategies to improve the implementation of green approach

Factors Contributing to Delay of Interim Payment in Civil Engineering Projects

Delay of interim payment remains a chronic problem in the Malaysian construction industry and has relatively increased in number in recent years. Other than causing conflict among the contracting parties, the impacts it brings could shatter the entire delivery chain. Thus, the unfavorable contractual behavior of the client is a matter of great concern that should be addressed by all parties involved to ensure satisfactory project performance. However, research has revealed that the factor causing it is not solely because of the client's faults but also caused by other factors. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine the factors that lead to the occurrence of delay of interim payment in government-initiated civil engineering projects in Malaysia. The perceptions of civil engineer consultants and contractors were compared in relation to a list of factors derived from the literature review. The data were collected through an industry-wide questionnaire survey from 288 respondents. This research developed a list of 22 items that might influence the delay of interim payment based on four domains, namely project characteristics, quality of Standard Form of Contract (SFoC), external factors and participants and local attitude. The results found that the occurrence of delay of interim payment in civil engineering project is very high frequency. Correlation analysis performed revealed that the three major factors are positively correlated, namely project scope and design changes, ground uncertainty under the project characteristics domain, and bureaucracy in government agencies under the participants and local attitude domain. These results can help the project participants to better understand the relationship between the groups of factors and the delay of interim payment and encourage them to find solutions or implement mitigating actions to improve the outcomes of civil engineering project