The Relationship of Education And ICT Determinants on Nation's Growth: An Empirical Analysis of Malaysia And Muslim Countries

Human capital is an important input to growth almost in every economy. This paper analyses and compares the contribution of education and ICT(information and communication Technology) variables on economic growth. Multiple regression and unbalanced panel approach are applied to a sample of ten countries from 1976 to 2010. The results revealed that school life expectancy, primary and secondary school enrolment influence on Malaysia’s growth. Meanwhile, the number of internet users, primary and tertiary school enrolment influences growth of Muslim countries

Fabrication of polycarbonate-based polymer optical fiber cladding: effect of different solvents

Normally, the cladding layer is fabricated by using heat through continuous extrusion, melt spinning, batch extrusion, and heat drawing technique. These techniques require high temperature precision in order to obtain the desired morphology of the cladding without compromising the quality of the polymer. Hence, in this study dip-coating method was utilized to coat the polycarbonate (PC) core with poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as a cladding part. The PC core was dipped into different cladding solutions using three types of organic solvent (i.e. Tetrahydrofuran (THF), N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), and Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and subjected to post-treatment process. The thickness of fabricated cladding layer was ~10–15 μm for all coating solutions. The cladding prepared by THF exhibits transparent layer wrapping the core. However, the cladding layers for PMMA dissolved in NMP and DMAc showed translucent appearance. The THF/PMMA solvent displayed ~98 % transmittance at visible region which was higher than NMP/PMMA and DMAc/PMMA. The failure strain (3.6 %) and tensile strain (88.98 MPa) of THF/PMMA sample were higher compared to other solutions. Young’s modulus which measures the stiffness and represents the breakability of a solid material was lower for THF/PMMA. Therefore, the THF is the most appropriate solution for fabrication of PC-based POF cladding layer

THE RELATIONSHIP OF EDUCATION AND ICT DETERMINANTS ON NATION’S GROWTH: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF MALAYSIA AND MUSLIM COUNTRIES

Human capital is an important input to growth almost in every economy. This paper analyses and compares the contribution of education and ICT (information and communication Technology) variables on economic growth. Multiple regression and unbalanced panel approach are applied to a sample of ten countries from 1976 to 2010. The results revealed that school life expectancy, primary and secondary school enrolment influence on Malaysia’s growth. Meanwhile, the number of internet users, primary and tertiary school enrolment influences growth of Muslim countries. Keywords: economic growth, education, ICT, panel data

DAY OF THE WEEK EFFECT AND STOCKMARKET VOLATILITY: FURTHER EVIDENCE FROMMALAYSIA EXCHANGE

This paper examines the day of the week anomalies at the Malaysian Exchange during various economic situations. In particular, the paper looks at the existence of day of the week effect for various indices, the popular benchmark Composite Index, the broader based Emas Index, smaller capital based Second Board Index, Financial Index of the Main Board and one of the newly created sectoral index of Trade and Services. Three estimation models are used to investigate the presence of daily effect in these indices: the Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS), Box and Jenkins ARIMA and the GARCH(p,q) models for capturing changing volatility in the stock returns. The OLS results reveal negative Monday mean returns for each of the indices for the whole sample period. As expected during the Asian Economic Crisis period, the mean returns are negative for each day of the week, with Thursday recording the largest negative returns. Negative mean returns on Monday are not generally observed for each of the indices in recent years (during the World Economic Crisis and the following Recovery Period). When the changing volatility in the financial market is taken into account, the Monday negative returns remain significant during the whole sample period

A Study on Muscle Fatigue Associated with Awkward Posture among Workers in Aerospace Industry

In aerospace industry, many tasks required manufacturing workers to perform their works in awkward posture. Awkward posture is a practical working posture when joints are not in neutral position such as lifting heavy products, reaching materials, bending forward their back when doing jobs, and pushing or pulling excessive loads because those tasks require a stable position and large degree of freedom. If the workers perform the jobs continuously in awkward posture throughout the working hours, they may be experience muscle fatigue. The objective of this study is to measure the myoelectric level (μV) exerted by the right and left thoracolumbar fascia muscles while workers perform the lay-up process in aerospace industry. The myoelectric level in the muscles was measured using surface Electromyography (sEMG) measurement. Six production workers from aerospace industry participated as subjects. The muscle fatigue of the subjects was measured during beginning until finish of lay-up process. This measuring activity has been doing from Wednesday to Friday. Highest results of myoelectric level for right thoracolumbar fascia is when the workers make the lay-up process for ply seven until ply eleven. Different with the results of myoelectric level for left thoracolumbar fascia which is; three of the workers got highest result when they are making the lay-up process for ply seven until ply eleven, but the other three of the workers got highest result when they are making the lay-up process for ply twelve. Nevertheless, after averaging both of the results, a mean result for each worker shows the highest myoelectric level is when the workers make the lay-up process for ply seven until ply eleven. According to the mean, a percentage of worse tasks are projected. Based on this study, the authors concluded that muscle fatigue of the lay-up workers in aerospace industry was influenced by the work load, work activity and duration of awkward posture

Diminish muscle activity by changing an anthropometry data with appropriate workstation among workers in aerospace manufacturing industry

.In the new era of world industrialization, ergonomics plays an important role to improve occupational safety and health, and productivity in most industries including aerospace manufacturing industry. However, aerospace manufacturing industry in Malaysia does not put any priority on ergonomics awareness, for an example, by not selecting a suitable workstation with operators’ anthropometry. As a consequence, operators are exposed to various ergonomic risk factors and prone to have ergonomic injuries. The objectives of this study are to diminish muscle activity while operators perform lay-up process in a workstation, before and after the workstation is changed using suitable an anthropometry data among operators. The surface Electromyography (sEMG), a set of anthropometry ruler and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) from Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) software are used to evaluate muscle activity, operators’ anthropometry data, and working posture respectively. Results of muscle activity and RULA found that by changing the anthropometry data with suitable workstation has diminished the physiological stress such as work/loading in muscles as well as extreme posture. The study concluded that suitable operators’ anthropometry must work with appropriate size of workstation because inappropriate selection can contribute significantly to improve physiological performance of the operators

Towards OBE: A Case Study of Course Outcome (CO) and Programme Outcome (PO) Attainment for Product Design and Development Course

The Outcome Based Education (OBE) has been one of the major concern of most academic institutions in Malaysia, especially among engineering departments since the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) has made it compulsory towards programme accreditation. However, various understanding towards the concept of OBE resulted to various attainment to Programme Outcome (PO) based on the Course Outcome (CO). Execution of the OBE may not be an easy matter as the mapping of the CO for each assessment may be mapped to multiple PO. This paper describe the analysis process of the CO and PO attainment for Product Design and Development subject, which is offered to all 2nd year students of Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka. Two methods are incorporated, (1) direct measurement, and(2) segregated measurement. The study identified that segregated measurement are more sensitive towards identifying the issues which affect attainment of CO and PO. Issues related to non-fulfilment of either CO or PO for Product Design and Development subject can be traced to lack of awareness towards product sustainability, synthesizing product design problems and student’s attitude towards citing proper literature information throughout the development of their product

A Study on Push-Pull Analysis Associated with Awkward Posture among Workers in Aerospace Industry

In aerospace industries, many working tasks required their workers to perform works in push-pull activity. It is associated with an awkward posture. The awkward posture is a practical working posture when joints are not in neutral position. Furthermore, the workers need to push or pull the mould in a long distance into a workplace. If the workers perform the activity continuously throughout the working hours, they may be experienced back pain problem. The objective of this study is to measure the maximum acceptable initial force and sustained force for push-pull activity while workers perform their tasks. Besides that, this study also wants to identify which activity can endure longer between push or pull activity. Moreover, this study measures the comfort level of working posture. The acceptable initial force and sustained force were measured using Push-Pull Analysis, expressed in Newton, N. The comfort level is measured using Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) Analysis, expressed in scoring level. Both of these assessments are analysis tools Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) software. Six production workers from manufacturing department were participated as subjects. The results show the maximum acceptable initial force for push task is 433.942N and pull task is 396.691N. While, the sustained force for push task is 333.465N and pull task is 318.317N. Referring to the results, pushing activity can endure longer than pulling activity while workers perform their tasks. While the comfort level for this working posture is seven. Based on this study, the authors concluded that push-pull activity can lead to the back pain problem for workers in aerospace industry. It’s was influenced by the work activity, work load, work duration of awkward posture and distance between workplace

A study on push-pull analysis associated with awkward posture among workers in aerospace industry

In aerospace industries, many working tasks required their workers to perform works in push-pull activity. It is associated with an awkward posture. The awkward posture is a practical working posture when joints are not in neutral position. Furthermore, the workers need to push or pull the mould in a long distance into a workplace. If the workers perform the activity continuously throughout the working hours, they may be experienced back pain problem. The objective of this study is to measure the maximum acceptable initial force and sustained force for push-pull activity while workers perform their tasks. Besides that, this study also wants to identify which activity can endure longer between push or pull activity. Moreover, this study measures the comfort level of working posture. The acceptable initial force and sustained force were measured using Push-Pull Analysis, expressed in Newton, N. The comfort level is measured using Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) Analysis, expressed in scoring level. Both of these assessments are analysis tools Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) software. Six production workers from manufacturing department were participated as subjects. The results show the maximum acceptable initial force for push task is 433.942N and pull task is 396.691N. While, the sustained force for push task is 333.465N and pull task is 318.317N. Referring to the results, pushing activity can endure longer than pulling activity while workers perform their tasks. While the comfort level for this working posture is seven. Based on this study, the authors concluded that push-pull activity can lead to the back pain problem forworkers in aerospace industry. It’s was influenced by the work activity, work load, work duration of awkward posture and distance between workplace

Analisis Laporan Kerosakan di Kolej Kediaman

Selain daripada keselesaan di bilik kuliah, kemudahan di tempat tinggal pelajar juga perlu dititikberatkan supaya berada dalam keadaan yang baik. Ini amat penting bagi menjamin persekitaran yang selesa sepanjang pengajian mereka di universiti. Jadi, kajian ini adalah untuk menganalis kerosakan yang dilaporkan sepanjang tahun 2012 dan tahun 2013. Hasil perbandingan dan indeks yang dikira, terdapat pengurangan laporan kerosakan pada tahun 2013. Ini adalah rentetan penyelenggaraan berkala yang dilakukan oleh pihak kolej kediaman bagi menjamin kemudahan yang disediakan berada dalam keadaan yang baik