The Influence of Organization Capability On Preventive Maintenance Practices and SMEs Performance in Malaysia

Preventive Maintenance (PM) is one of the key approaches towards realizing the goal of organization performance. Hence, it is extensively applied and become an important aspect in the manufacturing sectors. PM plays a pivotal role to avoid potential stoppages and disruptions of equipment from occurring in daily operations. PM utilizes total employee involvement in the maintenance activities to avoid potential disruptions, breakdowns, stoppages, and failures. Despite the sector contribution to the Malaysia economy for which the Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) makes up 95% of the total manufacturers, preventive maintenance practices remain relatively lacking. In the highly competitive manufacturing industries, the ability and reliability of equipment is very important in order to achieve desired manufacturing performance. However, empirical evidence on the potential impact of PM practices towards manufacturing performance remains limited and indecisive. For Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the extent of how organizational capability influences manufacturing performance is also inconclusive. Henceforth, this study aims to investigate potential relationships between PM practices and manufacturing performance moderated by organizational capability with a focus on Malaysian SMEs. The study is intended to put forward a new framework and hypotheses to examine the above mentioned relationships. The proposed framework includes PM team, PM strategy and planned maintenance as the independent determinants, while organizational capability serves as the moderating variable. At the other end, measurement for manufacturing performance comprises of innovation and financial factor is considered. Research direction and conclusion are then discussed at the end of the study

Influence of Knowledge Management and Individual Absorptive Capacity towards Innovation Capability among Agricultural Researchers: A pilot study

Advancing research and development (R&D) aspects is one of the main approaches to deal with this critical issue in agricultural sectors. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the instruments to comprehend the association between knowledge management, absorptive capacity, and innovation capability in Malaysia's agriculture R&D. Focusing on individual-level analysis, this study quantitatively assesses the validity and reliability of the instruments at the preliminary stage of before going into full-fledged research. Based on the content validity index (CVI), and pilot data value, the finalized instrument has been sufficiently analyzed to proceed into a larger-scale study

Optimization of Culture Conditions (Sucrose, pH, and Photoperiod) for In Vitro

Various explants (stem, leaf, and root) of Citrus assamensis were cultured on MS media supplemented with various combinations and concentrations (0.5–2.0 mgL−1) of NAA and BAP. Optimum shoot and root regeneration were obtained from stem cultures supplemented with 1.5 mgL−1 NAA and 2.0 mgL−1 BAP, respectively. Explant type affects the success of tissue culture of this species, whereby stem explants were observed to be the most responsive. Addition of 30 gL−1 sucrose and pH of 5.8 was most optimum for in vitro regeneration of this species. Photoperiod of 16 hours of light and 8 hours of darkness was most optimum for shoot regeneration, but photoperiod of 24 hours of darkness was beneficial for production of callus. The morphology (macro and micro) and anatomy of in vivo and in vitro/ex vitro Citrus assamensis were also observed to elucidate any irregularities (or somaclonal variation) that may arise due to tissue culture protocols. Several minor micromorphological and anatomical differences were observed, possibly due to stress of tissue culture, but in vitro plantlets are expected to revert back to normal phenotype following full adaptation to the natural environment

Biomass production and nutrient removal by spontaneous grown green algae oedogonium sp. from a pond in University of Tsukuba

As one of the methods for nutrient removal from eutrophicated lakes and ponds affected by nonpoint nutrient pollution, the conversion of nutrients into aquatic plant biomass (APB) has drawn increasing attention. In this study, the acquisition and sequestration of nutrients by APB and the application of APB as a resource were discussed. The study site was an eutrophicated inland pond at the University of Tsukuba, Amano-Gawa, which is occasionally covered with the submerged macrophyte green alga Oedogonium sp. This species was found to produce 1048 kg of total biomass in dry weight and 13.1 kg of lipid per harvest

Feasibility Study of a Low Cost Saltwater Lamp for Rural Area

Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources and cannot be depleted. Solar energy is the fastest growing source of renewable energy but the high installation and maintenance cost of a solar system has restrained the consumers from adopting this technology at their home or commercial building. This is especially true for those in developing countries. A new promising renewable energy source known as saltwater energy that takes advantage of the conductive nature of salt water to generate electricity, has intrigued many people. A study has been conducted to develop and produce saltwater-powered devices especially for rural and remote communities in Malaysia as well as worldwide. To main objective of this study is to determine the factors that affect the performance of the saltwater energy generation such as electrode’s combinations, number of cells and the durability of the electrodes. It was found that the choice of electrodes as anode and cathode does affect the voltage output. However, due to the small power produce, the number of cells must be increased to produce enough power to light up a led light and to provide power to USB port. This paper also conducted a cost analysis of using the saltwater lamp and compared it with a solar system. Although the difference in the cost per hour is very small, there are a number of disadvantages of solar system that need to be aware of. The findings obtained from these experiments will be used to design a prototype of the illumination technology for further product development

Dietary supplementation with hydrolyzed yeast and its effect on the performance, intestinal microbiota, and immune response of weaned piglets.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of autolyzed yeast on performance, cecal microbiota, and leukogram of weaned piglets. A total of 96 piglets of commercial line weaned at 21-day-old were used. The experimental design was a randomized block design with four treatments (diets containing 0.0%, 0.3%, 0.6%, and 0.9% autolyzed yeast), eight replicates, and three animals per pen in order to evaluate daily weight gain, daily feed intake, and feed conversion in periods of 0 to 15, 0 to 26, and 0 to 36 days. Quadratic effects of autolyzed yeast inclusion were observed on the feed conversion from 0 to 15 days, on daily weight gain from 0 to 15 days, 0 to 26 days and, 0 to 36 days, indicating an autolyzed yeast optimal inclusion level between 0.4% and 0.5%. No effect from autolyzed yeast addition was observed on piglet daily feed intake, cecal microbiota, and leukogram; however, i.m. application of E. coli lipopolysaccharide reduced the values of total leukocytes and their fractions (neutrophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, and rods). Therefore, autolyzed yeast when provided at levels between 0.4% and 0.5% improved weaned piglets’ performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Equity In Health care financing in low-and middle-income countries: A systematic review of evidence from studies using benefit and financing incidence analyses

© 2016 Asante et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Introduction: Health financing reforms in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) over the past decades have focused on achieving equity in financing of health care delivery through universal health coverage. Benefit and financing incidence analyses are two analytical methods for comprehensively evaluating how well health systems perform on these objectives. This systematic review assesses progress towards equity in health care financing in LMICs through the use of BIA and FIA. Methods and Findings: Key electronic databases including Medline, Embase, Scopus, Global Health, CinAHL, EconLit and Business Source Premier were searched. We also searched the grey literature, specifically websites of leading organizations supporting health care in LMICs. Only studies using benefit incidence analysis (BIA) and/or financing incidence analysis (FIA) as explicit methodology were included. A total of 512 records were obtained from the various sources. The full texts of 87 references were assessed against the selection criteria and 24 were judged appropriate for inclusion. Twelve of the 24 studies originated from sub-Saharan Africa, nine from the Asia-Pacific region, two from Latin America and one from the Middle East. The evidence points to a pro-rich distribution of total health care benefits and progressive financing in both sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific. In the majority of cases, the distribution of benefits at the primary health care level favoured the poor while hospital level services benefit the better-off. A few Asian countries, namely Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, maintained a pro-poor distribution of health care benefits and progressive financing. Conclusion: Studies evaluated in this systematic review indicate that health care financing in LMICs benefits the rich more than the poor but the burden of financing also falls more on the rich. There is some evidence that primary health care is pro-poor suggesting a greater investment in such services and removal of barriers to care can enhance equity. The results overall suggest that there are impediments to making health care more accessible to the poor and this must be addressed if universal health coverage is to be a reality

Particle identification in ALICE : a Bayesian approach

Peer reviewe

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century