Engaging postgraduate students in preparing research proposals

Both foreign and local postgraduate candidates of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. These students face several problems especially in writing the research proposals. Hence, to facilitate the process of writing a proposal, they are required to enrol in Research Methodology, a course that is made compulsory for all postgraduate students. This article presents a report on an action research that investigates the research skills of English as a Second Language postgraduates and their research journey while undergoing the Research Methodology course. Data was collected from their weekly journal entries and the interviews conducted on them. This data is also supported with the feedback by the Research Methodology course instructors during the proposal defense sessions. The findings suggest that although the students seemed enthusiastic when writing their proposals, they were not ready when faced with questions about research problems and approaches. It is found that these students did not read extensively to identify the gaps in their research and this hence, resulted in them facing difficulties to write a clear statement of the problem. This also led to poor formulation of their research questions. The findings will be beneficial for instructors and potential supervisors who aim to be better at teaching and supervising potential postgraduate students

Penyelesaian terhadap konflik ketidakseragaman undang-undang jenayah Syariah di Malaysia: Suatu analisis bagi kesalahan tatasusila

The jurisdiction of Syariah Court is very limited which causes the development of the implementation of Syariah criminal laws since the colonial period until now to be very slow. The conflict of legislation between civil law and Islamic law are remains until now. In fact, shariah criminal law also faces a variety of problems due to the diversity of policies and provisions of the law, shapes and the number of punishments set by the state's government. Hence, the objectives of this study are to clarify the framework of shariah criminal law in Malaysia regarding disciplinary offences, to analyse the conflict of its inconsistency and to propose the solution methods towards the conflict of inconsistencies of such laws. In summary, disciplinary offences are offences related to moral and sexual. The provisions of laws relating to these offences can be found in the The State Syariah Criminal Offences Act/ Enactment. The findings indicate that The Enforcement and Prosecution Divisions needs to be improved so that the enforcement of syariah criminal law can be empowered. Various parties should work hand-in-hand in order to standardise the law of these disciplinary offences so that they can be enforced and implemented in a more orderly manner. Moreover, the existing laws need to be amended from time to time to ensure that they are in line with local current needs and fulfilling the Islamic law requirements. Hence, the Act 355 needs to be amended in advance to enable The Stat

Some Practical Guidelines for Effective Sample-Size Determination in Observational Studies

- The purpose of this present study was to determine the right sample size in observational study which is focusing on medical or health sciences field. Sample size calculation is actually depends on the type of how the study is designed. For example different formulas are used to calculate the sample size in different type of the study. In this article, the formula of single proportion and two proportions is discussed and an example from medical research, which may contribute to the understanding of this problem, is presented

An All-Optical Frequency Up/Down-Converter Utilizing Stimulated Brillouin Scattering In A Trf And Dcf For Rof Application

A frequency up and down conversion is proposed based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) for Radio-over-fiber (RoF) system. Microwave frequency up conversion from 2GHz to 12.5GHz and microwave frequency down conversion from 12.5GHz to 1.8GHz with largest Intermediate Frequency (IF) power of -32dBm is successfully demonstrated. The up conversion is based on the 1st Stokes of Brillouin fiber laser in Truewave reach fiber (TWF) and the down conversion is based on 1st AntiStokes of Brillouin fiber laser in Dispersion compensating fiber (DCF)

Tunable spacing dual-wavelength Q-switched fiber laser based on tunable FBG device

A tunable spacing dual-wavelength Q-switched fiber laser is experimentally demonstrated based on a fiber Bragg grating tunable device incorporated in an erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL). The system utilizes two identical fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) at 1547.1 nm origin to enable two laser lines operation. The wavelength separations between two laser lines are controlled by fixing one of the FBGs while applying mechanical stretch and compression to the other one, using a fiber Bragg grating tunable device. The seven steps of wavelength spacing could be tuned from 0.3344 to 0.0469 nm spacing. Pulse characteristics for both close and wide spacing of dual-wavelength Q-switched fiber laser are successfully being recorded. The findings demonstrate the latest idea of dual-wavelength fiber laser based on FBG tunable device, which offers a wide range of future applications

Modelling lock-down strictness for COVID-19 pandemic in ASEAN countries by using hybrid ARIMA-SVR and hybrid SEIR-ANN

ASEAN, include Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, are the countries with ongoing transmission of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The confirmed cases in Indonesia and Philippines are the highest ranks among other ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. To reduce the spread of the pandemic COVID-19, each country has implemented the lock-down policy differently, depending on its economic situation. Therefore, the study of the impact of lock-down across the world, particularly in ASEAN countries, is still relevant to do. In this study, we developed the lock-down model in ASEAN countries by using hybrid ARIMA-SVR and hybrid SEIR-ANN. The first hybrid is based on the time series model ARIMA, with the revision of the error is by using SVR. The second hybrid is based on the classical model of infectious diseases, SEIR, which we revise on the prediction part by using ANN. The hybrid is intended to revise the individual prediction model. The data collected per country was started from January 20, 2020 to August 5, 2020. The periods of lock-down in this study are divided into three, namely no lock-down, implemented lock-down, and the new normal periods. The strictness levels of lock-down were predicted for 60 days ahead. The results showed that the hybrid ARIMA-SVR had smaller RMSE compared with individual ARIMA, similarly, hybrid SEIR-ANN predicted S, E, I, and R more accurately compared with individual SEIR model. It has been also found that the lock-down was most effectively implemented in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, whereas Indonesia and Philippines were inefficient countries to enforce the restriction. It is indicated by the number of cases increased significantly during the restriction periods in both countries

Effect of fiber content and their hybridization on bending and torsional strength of hybrid epoxy composites reinforced with carbon and sugar palm fibers

This study aims to investigate the effect of fiber hybridization of sugar palm yarn fiber with carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites. In this work, sugar palm yarn composites were reinforced with epoxy at varying fiber loads of 5, 10, 15, and 20 wt % using the hand lay-up process. The hybrid composites were fabricated from two types of fabric: sugar palm yarn of 250 tex and carbon fiber as the reinforcements, and epoxy resin as the matrix. The ratios of 85: 15 and 80: 20 were selected for the ratio between the matrix and reinforcement in the hybrid composite. The ratios of 50: 50 and 60: 40 were selected for the ratio between sugar palm yarn and carbon fiber. The mechanical properties of the composites were characterized according to the flexural test (ASTM D790) and torsion test (ASTM D5279). It was found that the increasing flexural and torsion properties of the non-hybrid composite at fiber loading of 15 wt % were 7.40% and 75.61%, respectively, compared to other fiber loading composites. For hybrid composites, the experimental results reveal that the highest flexural and torsion properties were achieved at the ratio of 85/15 reinforcement and 60/40 for the fiber ratio of hybrid sugar palm yarn/carbon fiber-reinforced composites. The results from this study suggest that the hybrid composite has a better performance regarding both flexural and torsion properties. The different ratio between matrix and reinforcement has a significant effect on the performance of sugar palm composites. It can be concluded that this type of composite can be utilized for beam, construction applications, and automotive components that demand high flexural strength and high torsional forces

Effect of fibre length and sea water treatment on mechanical properties of sugar palm fibre reinforced unsaturated polyester composites

This study presented the effect of different fibre length and seawater treatment on mechanical properties of the fabricated composites. The composite was reinforced with fixed 30wt.% of fibre loading. Sugar palm was treated using sea water for 30 days and have been cut into three different lengths by 5cm, 10cm and 15cm. The mechanical properties of the untreated and treated fibre with different fibre length composites were characterised includes tensile test and flexural test. Treated sugar palm fibre composites with 15cm fibre length exhibited higher tensile strength at 18.33 MPa. However, it shows the lowest value for the tensile modulus at 4251.96MPa. The flexural strength shows an increasing trend as the fibre length increased up to 15cm and the maximum flexural strength was exhibited by treated sugar palm fibre with 5 cm at 80.80MPa

Mechanical properties of longitudinal basalt/woven-glass-fiber-reinforced unsaturated polyester-resin hybrid composites

This work represents a study to investigate the mechanical properties of longitudinal basalt/woven-glass-fiber-reinforced unsaturated polyester-resin hybrid composites. The hybridization of basalt and glass fiber enhanced the mechanical properties of hybrid composites. The unsaturated polyester resin (UP), basalt (B) and glass fibers (GF) were fabricated using the hand lay-up method in six formulations (UP, GF, B7.5/G22.5, B15/G15, B22.5/G7.5 and B) to produce the composites, respectively. This study showed that the addition of basalt to glass-fiber-reinforced unsaturated polyester resin increased its density, tensile and flexural properties. The tensile strength of the B22.5/G7.5 hybrid composites increased by 213.92 MPa compared to neat UP, which was 8.14 MPa. Scanning electron microscopy analysis was used to observe the fracture mode and fiber pullout of the hybrid composites