ENHANCEMENT OF SOLAR STILL DISTILLATION BY EXTERNAL LENS CONCENTRATOR COLLECTOR

In many parts of the world, fresh water is unavailable to people. The worldwide rapid growth in industry has greatly increased the demand for fresh water. Early advancements in providing such solutions have come up with desalination plants to convert sea water into drinking water through distillation system. However, the operational and maintenance costs are high and energy demanding which is a practical option only in rich countries. Solar distillation is an expanding alternative to desalination that is distilling water using solar energy. Solar distillation is environmentally safe and uses solar radiation to evaporate saline water into potable water. This project aims to develop a solar desalination device that will produce fresh water using direct solar energy and to enhance the production of fresh water trough solar distillation by using external energy concentrator using lens under local condition. The solar still was operated in two modes of operation; basic solar still alone and basic solar still with external energy concentrator using lens. The experiment was taken in the month of July start on 9am to 5pm. The condensing tank efficiency increased 4% by using the enhancement of external concentration collector

The hybrid returns-to-scale model and its extension by production trade-offs: an application to the efficiency assessment of public universities in Malaysia

Most applications of data envelopment analysis (DEA) employ standard constant or variable returns-to-scale models. In this paper we suggest that these models may sometimes underutilize our knowledge of the underlying production process. For example, in the context of higher education considered in the reported application, individual universities often maintain a certain student-to-staff ratio which points that there should be an approximately proportional relationship between students and staff, at least in the medium to long run.Adifferent example is an observation that the teaching of postgraduate students generally requires more resources than the teaching of the same number of undergraduate students. In order to incorporate such information in a DEA model, we propose a novel approach that combines the recently developed hybrid returns-to-scale DEA model with the use of production trade-offs. The suggested approach leads to a better-informed model of production technology than the conventional DEA models. We illustrate this methodology by an application to Malaysian public universities. This approach results in a tangibly better efficiency discrimination than would be possible with the standard DEA models

Shari’A Compliance by Malaysian Muslim Businesses with Respect to Guidelines Given in Islamic Marketing

This research aims to investigate the perceptions of Muslim businessman regarding the extent to which Malaysian  businesses comply with the Shari’a  rules and regulations given in Islamic Marketing.. Information on perceptions of Muslim businessman were obtained by administering a structured survey questionnaire, by trained enumerators, in various States of Peninsular Malaysia. A total o0f 150 completed questionnaires were used in the research analysis.  The components of the questionnaire were statements derived from the Quran and the Sunnah, and also those reported in the Islamic literature. The findings from this research indicate that businesses generally felt that for most of the statements presented to them on Islamic marketing, only up to 50% of business respondents adhered to Islamic Marketing guidelines. These were some differences though. The responses were more positive with respect to Halal products, in which a higher percentage of businesses were perceived to follow this Islamic guideline. Keywords ---- Muslim Business Perspectives, Islamic Marketing guidelines , Shari’a  Compliance by Businesses in Malaysia

Jurisprudens Watan: Suatu Pengenalan Prinsip Tadbir Urus yang Baik Dilihat Melalui Perkara 181(1) Perlembagaan Persekutuan Malaysia [Watanic Jurisprudence: An Introduction To The Principles of Good Governance Viewed from Article 181(1) of The Federal Cons

Tadbir urus yang baik mempunyai prinsip etika yang tertakluk pada doktrin suatu perlembagaan. Doktrin perlembagaan pula mempunyai hubungan yang kuat dengan prinsip kedaulatan undang-undang. Banyak pihak membahaskan tentang kedaulatan undang-undang, malangnya Perkara 181(1) Perlembagaan Persekutuan sering diabaikan. Perkara 181(1) penting kerana dalam peruntukan itu menjelaskan prinsip kedaulatan Malaysia. Makalah ini mengemukakan prinsip tadbir urus yang baik berlandaskan doktrin undang-undang Malaysia. Metodologi jurisprudens watan digunakan untuk menentukan prinsip kedaulatan dan doktrin undang-undang Malaysia. Dapatan menunjukkan prinsip Tadbir urus yang baik berteraskan konsep khalifah, keadilan dan syura. Tiga buah konsep tersebut melahirkan prinsip integriti, akauntabiliti, amar maaruf, nahi munkar, teliti, muhasabah, ketelusan, persamaan dan kebebasan. Dari aspek perlaksanaannya pula, prinsip Tadbir urus yang baik dapat dikuatkuasakan melalui prinsip kuasa eksekutif Yang di-Pertuan Agong. Kesimpulannya, implikasi kedaulatan watan tanah air memberi legitimasi kepada pemakaian prinsip Tadbir urus yang baik menurut Islam dalam kerangka undang-undang Perlembagaan Persekutuan. Tadbir urus yang baik berprinsipkan Islam bukan sahaja terpakai kepada Yang di-Pertuan Agong, malah kepada sesiapa sahaja yang melaksanakan kuasa eksekutif baginda.     Good governance has ethical principles that are subject to the doctrine of a constitution. The constitutional doctrine, in turn, has a strong relationship with the principle of the rule of law. Many parties debate the rule of law, unfortunately, Article 181(1) of the Federal Constitution is often ignored. Article 181(1) is important because the provision explains the principle of Malaysia's sovereignty. This paper presents the principles of good governance based on Malaysia's legal doctrine. The Watanic jurisprudence methodology is used to determine the principles of sovereignty and the legal doctrine of Malaysia. The findings show good governance principles are based on the concept of the caliph, justice, and shura. These three concepts produce the principles of integrity, accountability, Amar ma'aruf, Nahi Munkar, prudence, self-reflection, transparency, equality, and freedom. In terms of implementation, good governance principles can be enforced through the principle of executive power of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. In conclusion, the implications of the indigenous sovereignty of the homeland give legitimacy to adopting good governance principles in Islam within the framework of the Federal Constitution. The good governance of Islamic principles is not only applicable to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong but also to anyone executing his executive powers.                   &nbsp

Adaptive User Interface Design: A Case Study of Web Recommendation System

Personalization is another special form of adaptation where it widely implements in the development of recommendation system that gives adaptive web environment for users. The main concept of recommendation system is to obtain user behavior factor from user interest or search history and predict the next request as they visit web pages. There are some issues arise in recommender systems which they need a lot of data to efficiently build recommendations. Large amount of items and user data are best for getting good recommendations. In practice, however many challenges exist and evaluation results of recommendation systems has been mixed. This paper presents the case study of Netflix and other case studies in the development of recommendation system and analyzes some of the problems and challenges in implementing recommender systems

The hybrid returns-to-scale model and its extension by production trade-offs: an application to the efficiency assessment of public universities in Malaysia

Most applications of data envelopment analysis (DEA) employ standard constant or variable returns-to-scale (CRS or VRS) models. In this paper we suggest that these models may sometimes underutilize our knowledge of the underlying production process. For example, in the context of higher education considered in the reported application, individual universities often maintain a certain student-to-staff ratio which points that there should be an approximately proportional relationship between students and staff, at least in the medium to long run. A different example is an observation that the teaching of postgraduate students generally requires more resources than the teaching of the same number of undergraduate students. In order to incorporate such information in a DEA model, we propose a novel approach that combines the recently developed hybrid returns-to-scale DEA model with the use of production trade-offs. The suggested approach leads to a better-informed model of production technology than the conventional DEA models. We illustrate this methodology by an application to Malaysian public universities. This approach results in a tangibly better efficiency discrimination than would be possible with the standard DEA models

Batu Tarsilah Sebagai Alat Kebesaran dan Kedaulatan: Salasilah Raja Brunei Dinilai dari Segi Ilmu Nasab Islam [Batu Tarsilah Being Regalia And Symbol Of Sovereign: The Pedigree Of Brunei Sultanate Viewed From Islamic Lineage Perspective]

Batu Tarsilah merupakan salah satu daripada tiga sumber utama salasilah raja Brunei. Ia adalah batu bersurat dengan catatan tarikh 1221H/1807M sementara dua sumber yang lain ialah riwayat lisan dan dokumen sejarah, termasuk manuskrip Melayu. Tetapi sebagai sumber yang langka, Batu Tarsilah tidak semestinya memberi info yang lengkap. Oleh sebab itu, ia memerlukan unsur lain yang memperkukuh dan memperjelas maklumat sedia ada. Melalui artikel ini, kajian berusaha mentafsir Batu Tarsilah berdasarkan ilmu nasab Islam, khususnya istifadah (اسْتِفَاضَة), bagi mengabsahkan kedaulatan raja Brunei. Hasil analisis komparatif dan kritikan konteks, Batu Tarsilah dianggap sumber terpercaya dalam menentukan status ahl al-bayt raja-raja Melayu. Penghasilannya didahului oleh sumber lisan sebelum ditulis di atas kertas, kemudian diukir pada batu untuk mewakili pandangan rasmi pemerintah Brunei. Batu Tarsilah juga mengabsahkan hubungan kekerabatan raja Brunei dengan ahl al-bayt Rasulullah s.a.w., begitu juga bangsa Quraysh umumnya sekaligus memperakui kedaulatan mereka sebagai pemimpin umat berdasarkan ijma’ para fuqaha. Berdasarkan dapatan ini, maka wajarlah Batu Tarsilah diangkat sebagai simbol kebesaran kerajaan Brunei.     Batu Tarsilah is one of the three main sources of the genealogy of the sultan of Brunei. It is an inscribed stone with notes dated back in 1221H/1807M while the other two sources are oral histories and historical documents including Malay manuscripts. However as a rare source, Batu Tarsilah does not necessarily give complete and comprehensive information. Due to that, it needs other elements to strengthen and clarify the information provided. Through this article, the research will try to interpret Batu Tarsilah based on Islamic genealogy, specifically Istifadah (اسْتِفَاضَة), to reassert the sovereignty of the sultan of Brunei. The outcome of this comparative analysis and context criticism, Batu Tarsilah is considered the most reliable source to determine the status of the ahl al-bayt of Malay sultans. The process is preceded with oral sources first, before it is written on paper followed by carving it on the stone to represent the official view of the government of Brunei. In addition, Batu Tarsilah also reasserts the kinship between the king of Brunei and ahl al-bayt of Rasulullah s.a.w. as well as the Quraysh at the same time certifying their sovereignty as leaders of the people based on the consensus of fuqaha’. Based on these findings, it is right that Batu Tarsilah is taken as a symbol of the greatness of the kingdom of Brunei

Comparative evaluation of public universities in Malaysia using data envelopment analysis

Applications of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for the assessment of performance of universities have been widely reported in the literature. Often the number of universities under the assessment is relatively small compared to the number of performance measures (inputs and outputs) used in the analysis, which leads to a low discriminating power of DEA models on efficiency scores. The main objective of this thesis is the development of improved DEA models that overcome the above difficulty, using a sample of public universities in Malaysia as an illustrative application. The proposed new approach combines the recently introduced Hybrid returns to scale (HRS) model with the use of additional information about the functioning of universities stated in the form of production trade-offs. The new model developed in this thesis, called Hybrid returns to scale model with trade-offs (HRSTO), is applied to a sample of eighteen universities, which is considered to be a very small sample for the DEA methodology. Our results show that, in contrast with standard DEA models, the new model is perfectly suitable for such samples and discriminates well between good and bad performers. The proposed combined use of HRS model with production trade-offs is a novel methodology that can be used in other applications of DEA. Overall, the thesis makes several contributions of the theory and practice of DEA. First, for the first time, it is shown that the higher education sector satisfies the assumptions and can be modelled using the proposed HRSTO model. Second, also for the first time, it is shown that production trade-offs can be assessed for such applications and the methodology of their assessment has been developed and used in the thesis. Third, it is demonstrated that the HRSTO model significantly improves the discriminating power of analysis compared to standard DEA models, which is particularly important for small data sets. Fourth, it is concluded that the HRS model is further improved if production trade-offs are used. Fifth, by experimenting with different specific values of production trade-offs, it is shown that even the most conservative estimates of trade-offs notably improve the model. Finally, our results contribute to the more general discussion of the performance of universities in Malaysia and identification of the best performers among them

The A-rray: visual animation in learning structured programming / Wan Salfarina Wan Husain ,Siti Hasrinafasya Che Hassan and Wan Norliza Wan Bakar

In mastering computer programming language, the logical thinking skills have been proposed as a fundamental knowledge. Unfortunately, the logical reasoning among UiTM students in computer problem solving usually results in high failure rates. Thus, there is a need to find alternative solutions to improve the students' logical thinking skill in computer problem solving. The visual animation is considered to be a very promising potential to aid students in learning and understanding the algorithm concept in programming. According to the result of students' learning style by using a set of Learning Style Inventory, 54% of students are visual thinkers. Thus, this paper is proposing a conceptual model in developing an interactive multimedia courseware named The A-rray to reinforce the basic concepts of programming such as summation, average, counting and searching. The ADDIE model of instructional design was used to develop the application

Transparent solar cell using spin coating and screen printing

The development of Transparent Solar Cells (TSC) has become the main focus of solar energy research in recent years. The TSC has a number of applications and make use of unexploited space such as skyscraper windows. In this paper, TSC is fabricated using commercially available titanium dioxide (TiO2) P25 to make a paste, which is deposited on FTO glass using screen printing and spin coating methods. The effects of the thickness of the TiO2 film on transparency are examined. The paste is synthesised in the Cleanroom and used in both methods of deposition. The final cell fabrication is a Dye sensitised solar cell (DSSC). The obtained transparency of the FTO glass is 83%, and after the deposition of TiO2 it is reduced to less than 80%. The overall transparency of the DSSC, which was made using the spin coating method, is 70% with an Isc of 9.5 mA and Voc 853mV