Starlight Optical: embracing all that glitters?

Tracy hung up the phone, and twirled her pen nervously.She then paced up and down her office restlessly.She just got off the phone with one of the salesmen.He was urgently pushing for her decision to whether or not to place any orders for an assortment of top designer eyewear. It was to be an assortment that was rather exclusive by the Malaysian eyewear retail industry standard. To compound to the urgency of her decision, it was not every day that salesmen carrying such top designer eyewear would travel all the way to small towns like Changlun to promote such products.It was only due to intense road-shows by the top brands, as part of their concerted large-scale promotion in Asia, that the salesmen were carrying such exclusive high-end brands. If Tracy were to postpone her decision and not place any orders, it could be a long wait for her before the next chance came by.That was why Tracy had to make up her mind overnight, though she had been mulling over it for the past week

Developing systems to control food adulteration

The objective of this study is to explore the current strategies available to monitor and detect the economically and criminally motivated adulteration of food, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and recommend new approaches and policies to strengthen future capabilities to counter adulteration in a globalized food environment. Many techniques are used to detect the presence of adulterants. However, this approach relies on the adulterant, or means of substitution, being "known" and an analytical method being available. Further techniques verify provenance claims made about a food product e.g. breed, variety etc. as well as the original geographic location of food production. These consider wholeness, or not, of a food item and so do not need to necessarily identify the actual adulterant just whether the food is complete. The conceptual framework developed in this research focuses on the process of predicting, reacting and detecting economically and criminally motivated food adulteratio

Road infrastructure and border trade in North-East Geopolitical Zone in Nigeria

Road infrastructure is vital in facilitating mobility and trade in Nigeria and the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Drawbacks to beneficial trade in the region have been identified to inefficiencies of infrastructures in Africa from the large volume of literature, and the growing security threats resulting from the migrant population. Main challenge is how to improve the processes of moving goods and services across national boundaries, and henceforth, building and operating efficient border controls and customs regulations. To date, trade initiatives from institutions like Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) amongst others have been stagnant, and not able to address these challenges. However, improving border posts and customs procedures will not only reduce the cost and delays in border checks but increasing dynamism in the demographics and other business constraints. The main objective of this study is to identify specific factors that would affect the growth of trade in border towns, and the importance of transport in facilitating mobility to border locations. Findings from the estimated coefficients revealed that Government investment in infrastructure is not significant enough to change the upwards trend in prices ceteris paribus, thus cost of doing business creates price differentials between the border town and other cities in Nigeria. Significant factors predicted – road networks and the environment play a key role in travel conditions.  As a result of this trend, it has increased border points of exit. Given the growing immigration problems, inefficient working of regional trade policies - ECOWAS and NEPAD amongst others, active labour force participation in border towns, and the improved conditions of roads, resulting into growth of illegal roads and increased conflict zones are experienced. It recommends a regional policy for a variety of economic activities – agriculture and small scale enterprises, amongst other things, as springboard for boosting growth of border trade in border towns. Key Words: Border trade, road infrastructure, immigration, illegal routes

Linkages and imports of Malaysia, 1978-1987 : An input-output approach

This article examines the inter-sectoral linkages and imports of Malaysia using the input-output approach. The method employed here will be similar to the work of Achaya and Hazari (1973), where they differentiated between total and domestic linkages. A hypothesis is put forward stating that there will below rank correlation between the total and domestic linkages if the import requirements are relatively high. The results of the analyses suggest a distinct characteristic between the industries generating backward and forward linkages respectively. This study found that there is a high correlation between the total and net forward linkage, suggesting the low import requirements for those industries generating forward linkage. These are in contrast with the results found for those industries generating backward linkage, where the correlation between the total and net backward linkage is lower. This suggests that the import requirements for those indutries generating backward linkage are higher than those industries generating forward linkage

Food allergen knowledge, attitude and practices among UK consumers: A structural modelling approach

Food allergies are becoming more prevalent and affect up to 1 – 2% of adults and 5- 8% of children in the UK. This study investigated the food allergen knowledge, attitude towards food allergens and food allergy management practices among food allergic and intolerant consumers and / or their family members and carers. Questionnaires were distributed at three major Free From events in the UK in 2017 and 2018. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used as a confirmatory technique to determine the model’s validity. Cereals containing gluten, milk and eggs were the most common triggers reported by the consumers. Other trigger foods such as chocolate, garlic, maize, onions, red and white meat, spices, and fruits such as apples and cherries were also reported. Consumers demonstrated very good understanding on the severity of allergic reactions, prevention method and hidden egg ingredients. Overall, consumers were relatively good in the knowledge section. The participants were motivated in their personal allergen avoidance towards food allergens especially in checking food labels, preference for more free from product choices and handwashing. Consumers did not rely on dietary apps or social media to find out about allergen-free food products. Both knowledge and attitude did not translate into food allergy management practices. Significant correlation between knowledge and attitude was identified suggesting that as knowledge decreases, so will their attitude scores. This study suggests that targeted and systematic food allergy management topics and peer support could be used to improve consumers’ knowledge and attitude to positively impact food allergen handling practices

‘No nuts please’: Food allergen management in takeaways

There is an increasing number of food allergic reactions occurring in food services including takeaways. This study investigated the food allergy knowledge, attitude and practices of staff in takeaways. Although more than half of the takeaways’ staff (n=28) demonstrated good food allergy knowledge, there still exists some misunderstanding among the respondents. There were confusion about lactose intolerance and milk allergy, a third of the takeaways’ staff were uncertain that hands could transfer allergens. Almost half of the respondents were not aware of the danger of offering water to dilute a food allergen to stop the reaction Experienced staff and managers / owners reported more positive attitude and higher frequency of good food allergen management practices. Respondents also strongly agreed that customers should inform staff if they have food allergies. However, takeaways’ staff would enquire customers if they need allergen information when taking orders over the telephone. Clear communication between front service staff, customers and kitchen crew are important and should be established and meals verified with cooks to ensure safe meals are prepared. Managers or owners should also strongly encourage their staff to participate in food allergy training. Food Standards Agency has set up a free food allergy online training that would be a valuable addition to food businesses

Food allergen labelling: “May contain” evidence from Malaysia

Food allergen labelling is mandatory and regulated whilst precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) remains voluntary in most countries. It is the aim of this study to identify the food allergens declared in food products sold in a developing country and to what extent food allergens and PAL are emphasised in the products. A total of 505 food and beverages (snacks, baked goods, confectionary, baby food, condiments & jams, beverages, powder & paste, instant food, chilled & frozen food and canned food) were evaluated in Malaysia. Soybean represents the largest group of food allergen declared in labels, followed by wheat and milk products. Thirteen variations of contains statement were found with “Contains [allergen(s)]” being the most common (55.02%). There were 22 different types of “may contain” statements with ‘May contain traces of [allergen(s)]’ being the most common advice labelling used (55.41%). Different font type or emphasis such as brackets (51.57%) and bold font (33.86%) were used to inform consumers about presence of allergens. The national regulations on food allergen labelling are then critically contrasted with other Asian countries and the EU Regulation No. 1169/2011, which represents one of the most stringent food regulations in the world. Improving current allergen labelling limitations and practices would be of great benefit to consumers to prevent risk of food hypersensitivity

A dime for your time: Distribution of earnings in the Malaysian manufacturing sector

This paper examines changes in the distributions of earnings of employees in the Malaysian manufacturing sector, using the Malaysian Employee Survey data from the World Bank with a sample size of slightly more than 10,000 respondents. Conventional OLS estimations answer questions such as ‘Does years of education affect salary?’ Quantile estimations however, address questions such as ‘does years of education affect salary differently for those at the upper end of the salary distribution (the relative winners) than for those at its lower end (the relative losers) and the middle-income workers (the averages)?’, where the effects of years of education on a particular earning quantile (or group) can be compared to those on other salary quantiles. Heterogeneity across different salary quantiles can therefore be studied

It matters where you graduate from and how good you are: recent findings from two Malaysian universities

Using a 2016/2017 unique dataset of 1,107 freshly minted university graduates sampled from a public and a private university in Malaysia, this paper deals with the intricate recent issue of batches of university graduates’ demand for better starting salaries.We examine whether their salaries are associated with academic performance in the form of CGPA, and which type of institution they graduated from, i.e. a public or private university.Estimation results reveal that these are two statistically significant determinants of the graduates’ starting salaries.Our results are robust to different model specification and different sets of controls. The results support the conventional perception that top academic performers and where you graduate from are indeed crucial to having a good salary prospect. As an aside, claims of gender wage discrimination are not substantiated by our empirical findings, i.e. gender shows no statistical significance on salaries