Associations of Pass-Fail Outcomes with Psychological Health of First-Year Medical Students in a Malaysian Medical School

Objectives: The demanding and intense environment of medical training can create excessive pressures on medical students that eventually lead to unfavorable consequences, either at a personal or professional level. These consequences can include poor academic performance and impaired cognitive ability. This study was designed to explore associations between pass-fail outcome and psychological health parameters (i.e. stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a cohort of first-year medical students in a Malaysian medical school. The depression anxiety stress scale 21-item assessment (DASS-21) was administered to them right after the final paper of the first-year final examination. Their final examination outcomes (i.e. pass or fail) were traced by using their student identity code (ID) through the Universiti Sains Malaysia academic office. Results: A total of 194 (98.0%) of medical students responded to the DASS-21. An independent t-test showed that students who passed had significantly lower stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms than those who failed the first-year final examination (P <0.05). Those who experienced moderate to high stress were at 2.43 times higher risk for failing the examination than those who experienced normal to mild stress. Conclusion: Medical students who failed in the final examination had higher psychological distress than those who passed the examination. Those who experienced high stress levels were more likely to fail than those who did not. Reducing the psychological distress of medical students prior to examination may help them to perform better in the examination

Simulation of sub-drains performance using visual MODFLOW for slope water seepage Problem

Numerical simulation technique was used for investigating water seepage problem at the Botanic Park Kuala Lumpur. A proposed sub-drains installation in problematic site location was simulated using Modular Three-Dimensional Finite Difference Groundwater Flow (MODFLOW) software. The results of simulation heads during transient condition showed that heads in between 43 m (water seepage occurred at level 2) until 45 m (water seepage occurred at level 4) which heads measurement are referred to mean sea level. However, elevations measurements for level 2 showed the values between 41 to 42 m from mean sea level and elevations for level 4 between 42 to 45 m from mean sea level. These results indicated an increase in heads for level 2 and level 4 between 1 to 2 m when compared to elevations slope at the level 2 and level 4. The head increases surpass the elevation level of the slope area that causing water seepage at level 2 and level 4. In order to overcome this problems, the heads level need to be decrease to 1 until 2 m by using two options of sub-drain dimension size. Sub-drain with the dimension of 0.0750 m (diameter), 0.10 m (length) and using 4.90 m spacing was the best method to use as it was able to decrease the heads to the required levels of 1 to 2 m

Simulation of sub-drains performance using visual MODFLOW for slope water seepage Problem

Numerical simulation technique was used for investigating water seepage problem at the Botanic Park Kuala Lumpur. A proposed sub-drains installation in problematic site location was simulated using Modular Three-Dimensional Finite Difference Groundwater Flow (MODFLOW) software. The results of simulation heads during transient condition showed that heads in between 43 m (water seepage occurred at level 2) until 45 m (water seepage occurred at level 4) which heads measurement are referred to mean sea level. However, elevations measurements for level 2 showed the values between 41 to 42 m from mean sea level and elevations for level 4 between 42 to 45 m from mean sea level. These results indicated an increase in heads for level 2 and level 4 between 1 to 2 m when compared to elevations slope at the level 2 and level 4. The head increases surpass the elevation level of the slope area that causing water seepage at level 2 and level 4. In order to overcome this problems, the heads level need to be decrease to 1 until 2 m by using two options of sub-drain dimension size. Sub-drain with the dimension of 0.0750 m (diameter), 0.10 m (length) and using 4.90 m spacing was the best method to use as it was able to decrease the heads to the required levels of 1 to 2 m

Performance Investigation of Dual Wavelength Fiber Laser using different SOAs

We investigated the performance of a dual wavelength fiber laser (DWFL) using different types of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) utilizing fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) as comb filter. The lasing performances of linear SOA (LSOA), nonlinear SOA (NLSOA) and booster optical amplifier (BOA) at different current setting were observed. LSOA produced the flattest spectrum based on its peak power difference at only 4.5 dB as compared to 66.4 dB using BOA. BOA has the worst flatness because its polarization sensitivity is the highest as compared to LSOA and NLSOA. Overall, the best lasing performance is when LSOA is used due to the lowest peak power difference with high peak power at -17.6 dBm

Impact of Teaching Cohesive Devices on L2 Students\u27 Language Accuracy in Written Production

A well-written text is not only grammatical, but also cohesive and coherent. Cohesive devices play the most basic role in cohesion of a text and should be taken into consideration in teaching writing. This paper reports on a study investigating the impact of teaching academic text cohesive devices on L2 students\u27 language accuracy in written production. The main objective of the study is to find out if teaching cohesive devices would enhance students\u27 prior knowledge and subsequently result in increased written language accuracy. Based on a pre-post-test research design, 40 students enrolled in English for Academic Purposes course at a university in Malaysia were engaged as participants. A note-taking test was conducted prior to and post intervention. The intervention consisted of lessons on academic text cohesive devices. The data was then analysed and reported using descriptive statistics and paired sample t-test. From the findings, it is clear that there is an increase in the minimum and maximum scores as well as in the mean scores between the pre- and post-test. More importantly, there is evidently a significant improvement in the participants\u27 post-test language accuracy as evaluated through number of error-free t-units. In sum, the teaching of academic text cohesive devices does have a significant impact on language accuracy in written production. Hence, this study recommends L2 learners\u27 prior knowledge activation to enhance written language accuracy

A Methodology To Determine Product Maintainability Based On Assembly Criteria - A Case Study Of Rear Matorcycle Brake Assembly.

This paper presented a methodology to determine a maintainability index based on assembly criteria. Typically time is the major parameter or indicator being used measuring the maintainability, but less works are focus on details components assembly and assembly criteria

Multi objective machining estimation model using orthogonal and neural network

Much hard work has been done to model the machining operations using the neural network (NN). However, the selection of suitable neural network model in machining optimization area especially in multi objective area is unsupervised and resulted in pointless trials. Thus, a combination of Taguchi orthogonal and NN modeling approach is tested on two types of electrical discharge machining (EDM) operations; Cobalt Bonded Tungsten Carbide (WC-Co) and Inconel 718 to observe the efficiency of proposed approach on different numbers of objectives. WC-Co EDM considered two objective functions and Inconel 718 EDM considered four objective functions. It is found that one hidden layer 4-8-2 layer recurrent neural network (LRNN) is the best estimation model for WC-Co machining and one hidden layer 5-14-4 cascade feed forward back propagation (CFBP) is the best estimation model for Inconel 718 EDM. The results are compared with trial-error approach and it is proven that the proposed modeling approach is able to improve the machining performances and works efficiently on two-objective problems

A Systematic Analysis of Innovation Studies: a Proposed Framework on Relatioship Between Innovation Process and Firm\u27s Performance

Innovation has been discussed in a broad field. Scholars have defined and discussed innovation in various forms and perspectives. Whether empirical or conceptual, the discussions have delineated innovation in various perspectives such as organizational innovation, newness, innovation management, innovation as interactive model and types of innovation. In fact, due to the competitive environment, innovation is crucial and has become a niche for firm\u27s performance. This paper aims to provide a systematic analysis and propose framework that emphasizes on investigating the relationship between innovation and firm performance. Based on literature review, this paper proposes six constructs which can be used to examine the innovation implementation at firm level. The constructs are leadership, managerial levers, business processes, innovation process, innovation outcome and firm performance

Integration Of Design For Modularity And Design For Assembly To Enhance Product Maintainability.

This paper discussed the relationship between design for modularity and maintenance in order to extend product life. Modularization can be described as an engineering approach to simplify component or product configuration as functional independence it creates