TOURIST ARRIVALS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SARAWAK

This study empirically investigates the comovements and the causality relationship between tourist arrivals and economic growth in Sarawak during the period of 1972 to 2004. The empirical evidence clearly shows that the long run causality running from tourist arrivals to economic growth in the estimation period. As one of the income generator for Sarawak, the findings are consistent with economic theory and proffer important policy conclusions.

Spectrality of Self-Similar Tiles

We call a set $K \subset {\mathbb R}^s$ with positive Lebesgue measure a {\it spectral set} if $L^2(K)$ admits an exponential orthonormal basis. It was conjectured that $K$ is a spectral set if and only if $K$ is a tile (Fuglede's conjecture). Despite the conjecture was proved to be false on ${\mathbb R}^s$, $s\geq 3$ ([T], [KM2]), it still poses challenging questions with additional assumptions. In this paper, our additional assumption is self-similarity. We study the spectral properties for the class of self-similar tiles $K$ in ${\mathbb R}$ that has a product structure on the associated digit sets. We show that any strict product-form tiles and the associated modulo product-form tiles are spectral sets. As for the converse question, we give a pilot study for the self-similar set $K$ generated by arbitrary digit sets with four elements. We investigate the zeros of its Fourier transform due to the orthogonality, and verify Fuglede's conjecture for this special case.Comment: 22page

Advantages and Setbacks of Industrialized Building System (IBS) Implementation: A Case Study in Sarawak

Industrialized Building System (IBS) is an innovative technique adopted to increase the efficiency, quality and productivity of projects. However, these advantages are proven mainly for projects located in urban areas only. IBS is not a common practice for projects located in rural areas. Although there were studies about IBS in Malaysia about its advantages and setbacks, these studies were focusing on projects located in urban areas located in West Malaysia only. Hence, this paper aids to close the gap via examining advantages and setbacks of implementing IBS in rural areas of Sarawak, East Malaysia which the level urbanization is low. Qualitative method with case study approach was adopted. This paper reveals that the advantages of IBS are faster project completion, provides cleaner, neater and safer construction sites, and reduces foreign workers. However, some advantages are not applicable, i.e. high quality of work and lower total construction costs. On the other hand, this paper reveals that there is no significant difference between setbacks of IBS in rural areas of Sarawak, East Malaysia and urban areas of West Malaysia. These setbacks are resistance to change, negative perceptions of the stakeholders towards IBS designs, expensive overall construction costs, lack of knowledge and exposure to IBS technology and lack of IBS manufacturers in industry. Among these setbacks, the lack of local IBS manufacturers and expensive overall construction costs are two significant setbacks. This paper manages to provide an insight for construction firms, as well as policy maker, that are going to implement IBS in their projects in rural areas, especially in developing countries. &nbsp

Assessing and Improving Library Services at Georgia Southern University

Many academic libraries in America, including Georgia Southern University Zach S. Henderson Library are required to document and prove how its performance contributes to institutional goals and outcomes. Over the years, Henderson Library has been assessing its service performance, making improvements, and demonstrating its values. It has been applying various assessment tools and methods to evaluate its services and programs, and using the findings to make improvements. This case study article will describe how Henderson Library continuously assesses and improves its services