Usaha Pihak Sekolah Mengatasi Gejala Ponteng Di Kalangan Pelajar

The purpose of this research was to see the relationship among 5 dependant variables with the problem of school truancy among form four students. School factors which was identified in this researched were teachers’ teaching method, class management, co-curriculum management, peers and school beautification. The objectives of this research was to see which school factor dominantly influenced the school truancy among students. The respondents are form 4 students in 4 grade A schools in Jitra, Kubang Pasu district of Kedah. Respondents involved in this research were 241 and questionnaires were used to obtained data. Nine hypotheses were tested by the Method of Pearson’s Correlation Method, One Way ANOVA, T-test and Multiple Regression Test. The results showed that there was no significant relationship among gender, race, PMR achievement and class management with the problem of school truancy. But there was a relationship among peers, teachers’ teaching process, co-curriculum management and school beautification with the problem of school truancy. Peers was the most dominant factors toward truancy problem, compared to teachers’ teaching process, co-curriculum management and school beautification

Factors Contributing to Delay of Interim Payment in Civil Engineering Projects

Delay of interim payment remains a chronic problem in the Malaysian construction industry and has relatively increased in number in recent years. Other than causing conflict among the contracting parties, the impacts it brings could shatter the entire delivery chain. Thus, the unfavorable contractual behavior of the client is a matter of great concern that should be addressed by all parties involved to ensure satisfactory project performance. However, research has revealed that the factor causing it is not solely because of the client's faults but also caused by other factors. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine the factors that lead to the occurrence of delay of interim payment in government-initiated civil engineering projects in Malaysia. The perceptions of civil engineer consultants and contractors were compared in relation to a list of factors derived from the literature review. The data were collected through an industry-wide questionnaire survey from 288 respondents. This research developed a list of 22 items that might influence the delay of interim payment based on four domains, namely project characteristics, quality of Standard Form of Contract (SFoC), external factors and participants and local attitude. The results found that the occurrence of delay of interim payment in civil engineering project is very high frequency. Correlation analysis performed revealed that the three major factors are positively correlated, namely project scope and design changes, ground uncertainty under the project characteristics domain, and bureaucracy in government agencies under the participants and local attitude domain. These results can help the project participants to better understand the relationship between the groups of factors and the delay of interim payment and encourage them to find solutions or implement mitigating actions to improve the outcomes of civil engineering project

Contribution of transposable elements in the plant's genome

Plants maintain extensive growth flexibility under different environmental conditions, allowing them to continuously and rapidly adapt to alterations in their environment. A large portion of many plant genomes consists of transposable elements (TEs) that create new genetic variations within plant species. Different types of mutations may be created by TEs in plants. Many TEs can avoid the host's defense mechanisms and survive alterations in transposition activity, internal sequence and target site. Thus, plant genomes are expected to utilize a variety of mechanisms to tolerate TEs that are near or within genes. TEs affect the expression of not only nearby genes but also unlinked inserted genes. TEs can create new promoters, leading to novel expression patterns or alternative coding regions to generate alternate transcripts in plant species. TEs can also provide novel cis-acting regulatory elements that act as enhancers or inserts within original enhancers that are required for transcription. Thus, the regulation of plant gene expression is strongly managed by the insertion of TEs into nearby genes. TEs can also lead to chromatin modifications and thereby affect gene expression in plants. TEs are able to generate new genes and modify existing gene structures by duplicating, mobilizing and recombining gene fragments. They can also facilitate cellular functions by sharing their transposase-coding regions. Hence, TE insertions can not only act as simple mutagens but can also alter the elementary functions of the plant genome. Here, we review recent discoveries concerning the contribution of TEs to gene expression in plant genomes and discuss the different mechanisms by which TEs can affect plant gene expression and reduce host defense mechanisms