In Vitro Fertilization Of Hamster Ova As An Aid In Assessing The Fertilizing Capacity Of Human Spermatozoa

Studies have been recently undertaken in many research laboratories to examine the fertilizing capacity of spermatozoa from human male s with histories of unexplained infer tility to investigate their ability to penetrate ova . Since human ova are not readily available , hamster ova have been used as a substitute for these studies and research is going on to test the validity o f this as say as areliable diagnostic tool for examining spermovum interaction in man and animals. A study was undertaken to develop such an as say system for evaluating the causes of 'unexplained infertility ' in males at the National Population and Family Development Board in Kuala Lumpur

The US exchange rate behavior: an advanced test on price parity theorem

We researched a significant topic on exchange rate behavior by restating the test procedures in a novel manner and applying an appropriate econometric methodology to re-examine exchange rate behavior of the US economy. The central research question is: Do inflation differences across two economies fully account for exchange rate changes, if controls for non-parity factors are embedded while controlling for interest rate differences? The results affirm, for the first time, that price parity factor holds well while other factors - interest rates and non-parity factors - also affect exchange rates significantly. Our tests also identifies the time to equilibrium to be 0.139 (13.9%) per quarter to adjust to equilibrium value. In our view, these findings extend our knowledge of how the US dollar behavior is consistent with parity and non-parity theorems. Prior tests have been inconclusive on parity factors. The Malaysian Ringgit is heavily dependent on the US dollar exchange rate, and our findings thus have monetary policy implications for the Malaysia's regulators

Do accounting and finance tools serve governance?

A brief review of recent literature on corporate governance is provided, which is then concluded with a proposed corporate governance framework as a starting point for further development. We propose that it is stakeholder concentration that determines the quality of corporate governance. Next objective of this paper is the more ambitious one of addressing the role of accounting and finance disciplines to serve corporate governance. We test empirically if the use of some accounting and finance tools would have alerted management, auditors and regulators as well as investors to the impending collapse of failed firms ahead of time. If performance deterioration is not verifiable by using such acclaimed tools of these disciplines, then the advocacy of these disciplines is untenable and their contribution is overstated. Careful application of accounting-cum-finance tools, it appears, would have pre-identified the financial weakening of troubled firms, well ahead of time to catastrophic failures

Re-examination of price level differentials using economic freedom index

Findings reported in this paper provide improved explanation as to what factors are correlated with price levels across a large sample of 152 countries. The results are obtained from using a new set of variables called economic freedom indices, covering 19 years. Prior studies used income, trade openness, and productivity, which led to results with much less explanatory power compared to findings reported in this paper. We apply advanced panel data econometrics to obtain robust estimates of parameters, which, in our view, led to results with substantially high coefficient of variations close to 90%. The findings show that all the nine dimensions of economic freedom used in this study significantly account for the variations in national price levels

Factors Influencing Intention To Consume Herbal Supplement

The recent growth of herbal industry in Malaysia intensifies the challenges among market players. The main ingredient to be successful in the competitive industry is to be customer-oriented and market-driven. This research aims to contribute to the general understanding of consumer behavioral intention towards choice preferences, and to assist marketers in determining factors that influence consumers’ intention towards herbal supplement

Rekabentuk Sistem Pendaftaran Berasaskan Faksimili

Rekabentuk Sistem Pendaftaran Berasaskan Faksimili adalah satu kajian yang dibangunkan bagi mengatasi masalah bebanan kerja, batasan waktu kerja melayan pelanggan dan ruang tempat untuk berurusan. Tumpuan diberikan kepada pendaftaran kerana penggunaannya amat meluas di mana-mana terutamanya di sektor kerajaan seperti universiti yang terlibat dengan pendaftaran masuk pelajar ke universiti, pendaftaran semester baru, pendaftaran seminar dan lain-lain lagi. Sistem ini secara umumnya melibatkan pengautomasian pejabat (bagi membolehkan kerja-kerja dilakukan oleh mesin). Di dalam pengautomasian pejabat pemprosesan dokumen adalah elemen yang penting. Pemprosesan dokumen bermula dengan fasa pengecaman aksara pintar bagi membolehkan data dibaca dari dokumen faksimili yang diterima. Bagi pengecaman aksara pintar perisian Teleform digunakan untuk membangunkan Sistem Pemprosesan Dokumen ini. Apabila data telah dicerap ianya dikategorikan dan diletakkan di dalam satu fail teks dengan menggunakan kaedah nilai diasingkan dengan koma. Untuk memastikan bahawa hampir semua kerja dilakukan oleh mesin konsep pengintegrasian komputer dan telefon digunakan. Ini adalah bagi membolehkan kedua-kedua komponen itu bekerjasama bagi menghapuskan masalah dari segi masa dan sempadan geografi. Cara pengintegrasian ini dilakukan dengan mengujudkan satu sistem yang mampu berinteraksi dengan pelanggan melalui telefon dan sistem ini juga berhubung dengan pangkalan data untuk mendapatkan maklumat yang dikehendaki oleh pelanggan melalui Sistem Faksimili Atas Permintaan (SFAP). Di samping itu juga digunakan FaxltBack sebagai laluan bagi faksimili. Kaedah aliran kerja digunakan u ntuk melihatkan bagaimana sistem ini bergerak secara teratur mengikut langkah demi langkah yang melibatkan ketiga-tiga sistem iaitu Sistem Pemprosesan Dokumen, Sistem Faksimili Atas Permintaan dan Sistem Maklumat Bersepadu. Hasil dari pembentukan sistem ini didapati bahawa Sistem Pemprosesan Dokumen dapat menyediakan borang berformat, pencerapan data dan melakukan pengecaman aksara pintar dengan anggaran ketepatan sebanyak 75 peratus. Ketiga-tiga sistem tersebut mampu dijalankan secara tidak serentak dan menghadapi keadaan kaku apabila ketiga-tiga dihidupkan serentak. Masalah utama yang dikenal pasti ialah kekurangan ingatan capaian rawak (RAM) dan pelabuhan komunikasi (com port)

Who sets the agenda? Locating the formation of public opinion during the Rantau by-election

This paper investigates whether online news that are shared on Facebook set the agenda for its readers. In response to the importance of social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to articles. This allows for a wider news reach as well as audience participation. When audience members read and subsequently comment on news articles on Facebook, it becomes possible to identify public opinions and sentiments on the issues being covered. To investigate whether user comments mirror the issues and sentiments presented in the news articles, the agenda-setting approach was applied. Content analysis was used to analyse audience comments on over 450 news articles from 4 major newspapers written during the Rantau by-election in Malaysia (April, 2019). The findings showed that while the newspapers and the readers do share some issue salience, the relationship does not typify a traditional agenda-setting dynamic. The news readers are not just the ones receiving the news and issues. Rather, they are also commenters who are influencing how others receive news and issues hence disrupting the conventional public opinion model

Doping Dependence Of Magnetic Susceptibility And Electrical Properties Of High Temperature Superconducting Ceramics

It has been well known that Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system has three superconducting phases represented by general formula, Bi2Sr2Can-1CUnOy , referred to as 2201(n= 1,Tc~ 10K), 2212 (n=2, Tc~ 80K), and 2223 (n = 3, Tc~ 11 OK) The role of calcium and copper seem to influence the formation of those phases This research work was focussed at the role played by calcium in the formation of 2223 phase by doping this site with different elements having different valences and ionic radius Sample of Bi2-xbpxSr2Ca2Cu3O3(x=01 to 06)and Bi2Pb06Sr2Ca2-"MxCu3Oy (M = Ba, Y, V, Zn, Sn with x =0 02 to 0 10) were prepared using the conventional solid state reaction technique The samples were sintered at 855°C for 150 hours and annealed at 830°C for 30 hours The transport properties of the samples were measured using four-point probe resistance measurement, magnetic properties by using ac susceptibility, microstructure by scanning electro

Earnings response coefficient of banking shares: a multi-country study with control for risk

This paper reports new finding on earnings response coefficients of banking firms on how information disclosed regarding (i) total earnings and (ii) fee earnings is associated with share price changes around the time of financial report releases. This paper extends to banking firms a widely used analysis of earnings response studies on non-banking firms. To obtain robust test results, we extended this common model, for the first time, by adding control variables and also by applying panel regression. Changes in total earnings do influence share prices significantly in the four countries studied i.e. Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and Australia. Australian investors appear to use disclosed information on fee income also to revise share prices significantly as being value relevant. Investors regard both total and fee incomes as equally important in Australia whereas investor actions in the other three markets studied lead to weak evidence on fee income effect. This paper reports new findings on value relevance of disclosures extended to banking firms