Rumble Strips : A Human Factors Perspective towards a Sustainable Road System

Prior research substantiates the belief that human factors contribute to up to 90% of all traffic accidents. The failure to consider cognitive ergonomics in road safety initiatives will continue to cause traffic fatality, especially on straight roads. Since drivers and road safety practitioners cannot wholly avoid driver’s non-compliance, skillbased errors, and mistakes, road designs should aim to reduce the severity of repercussions resulting from human errors. For example, in the case of a momentary lapse of attention leading to lane departure, drivers should be able to correct their maneuvers. A human-centered traffic system approach of road design may reduce the severity of accidents caused by human error. An investigation of road crashes in Malaysia conducted by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research revealed that 66% of road crashes in Malaysia are opposite-direction head-on crashes and run-off-road (roadway departure) crashes. Installing Lane Departure Warning System such as Centerline Rumble Strips (CLRS) and Shoulder Rumble Strips (SRS) can reduce these types of crashes and compensate human errors on the road. Rumble strips alert drivers that they are deviating from their lane by providing both tactile and auditory warnings. Although the effectiveness of rumble strips is well documented in prior researches, the practice of installing rumble strips is still scarce in Malaysia. This paper highlights how rumble strips can mitigate the consequences of the human errors, in the hope that the information can help road safety researchers, authorities, and practitioners move forward in the implementation of interventions towards sustainable road system

Cochran’s Q with Pairwise McNemar for Dichotomous Multiple Responses Data: a Practical Approach

When utilizing single-response questions for a survey, researchers often overlook the possibility that an item can have a smorgasbord of viable answers. It results in the loss of information as it forces the respondents to select a best-of-fit option. A multiple-responses question allows the respondent to select any number of answers from a set of preformatted options. The ability to capture a flexible number of responses allows collectively exhaustive concepts to manifest for deductive verification. This paper explores the practical use of Cochran’s Q test and pairwise McNemar test to examine the proportion of responses derived from the results of Multiple Responses Analysis (MRA). This includes Cochran’s Q operation on MRA data table using a simulated data set. Cochran’s Q test detects if there is a difference in the proportion of multiple concepts. In the case of a significant result, it would require a post hoc analysis to pinpoint the exact difference in pairwise proportions. This pairwise difference can be detected by utilizing pairwise McNemar test with Bonferroni Correction. This paper serves as a reference for researchers and practitioners who need to examine the proportion of collectively exhaustive concepts collected from a multiple responses item

Rumble strips: a human factors perspective towards a sustainable road system

Prior research substantiates the belief that human factors contribute to up to 90% of all traffic accidents. The failure to consider cognitive ergonomics in road safety initiatives will continue to cause traffic fatality, especially on straight roads. Since drivers and road safety practitioners cannot wholly avoid driver’s non-compliance, skill-based errors, and mistakes, road designs should aim to reduce the severity of repercussions resulting from human errors. For example, in the case of a momentary lapse of attention leading to lane departure, drivers should be able to correct their maneuvers. A human-centered traffic system approach of road design may reduce the severity of accidents caused by human error. An investigation of road crashes in Malaysia conducted by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research revealed that 66% of road crashes in Malaysia are opposite-direction head-on crashes and run-off-road (roadway departure) crashes. Installing Lane Departure Warning System such as Centerline Rumble Strips (CLRS) and Shoulder Rumble Strips (SRS) can reduce these types of crashes and compensate human errors on the road. Rumble strips alert drivers that they are deviating from their lane by providing both tactile and auditory warnings. Although the effectiveness of rumble strips is well documented in prior researches, the practice of installing rumble strips is still scarce in Malaysia. This paper highlights how rumble strips can mitigate the consequences of the human errors, in the hope that the information can help road safety researchers, authorities, and practitioners move forward in the implementation of interventions towards sustainable road system

The Role of Demographic Variables on Knowledge-Sharing Behaviour among Academicians

Every organisation needs to recognize knowledge as an important asset for individuals as well as the organisation itself order to survive in competitive environment. Since knowledge sharing is a critical activity for academicians, it has to be enhanced by stimulating individuals to share their knowledge voluntarily with other individuals and to contribute to the organizational knowledge base. Hence, institutions should focus on motivating the academicians to share knowledge among themselves, across the departments, institutions, and industries; and to contribute to the knowledge base. Objective: To identify the role of demographic variables on knowledgesharing behaviour among academicians. Results: Every individual’s attitude is subject to his own personal traits and to the environment or surrounding that the individual belongs to or is attached with. In the university, knowledge is intensively created and disseminated through research and publication. This is the most probable due to the belief that individual knowledge is not necessarily easy to be retrieved. Thus academicians play their roles as knowledge providers by transferring and sharing their knowledge through written contributions, organisational communications, personal interaction, and communities of practices activities. Motivational factors may be categorized according to different age, gender, designation, and organizational tenure of the academicians. This topic prompts individuals to actually oblige in sharing the knowledge. The reason is due to the fact that knowledge-sharing actually give more benefits than pitfalls. Individuals should require motivation to exchange the knowledge for the organization to gain competitive advantage. Conclusion: This concept paper provides an insight on the role of demographic characteristics towards knowledge-sharing behaviour among the academicians

Internal Factors Affecting Perceived Impact of ICT on Rural Business Potential : The Mediating Role of Productive Internet Usage

This paper aims to find out the mediating effect of productive internet usage in the relationship between internal factors of internet adoption and perceived rural business potential impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Internal factors investigated in this study are perceived ease of use of ICT, perceived usefulness of ICT, and ICT literacy. The expected outcome is perceived impact of ICT on rural business potential, while productive internet usage act as the mediator variable in this study. The findings show that productive internet usage mediates the effect of the three internal factors on the expected outcome. This study shows the important of creating more opportunity for the community members to get more exposure to the productive internet usage and its benefit, especially in increasing business potential. Besides that, through the mediation model analysis, this study helps to assess the effectiveness of internet usage for rural business potential and give an insight of how productive internet usage plays its role in mediating the impact of internal factors on the perceived impact of ICT on rural business potential

Ontologies for a university web portal

The advancement of Web technologies provide diverse means to support learning in a flexible and a personalized manner.Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given in a well-defined meaning, enabling computers and people to work closely.One of the standard components in Semantic Web is Ontology, which is the center of focus in this study.List of phrases were gathered from the university’s web portal s and then examined and content-analyzed before being categorized. The study uncovers phrases commonly used by web designers other than the portal’s information infrastructure used in Malaysian universities’ web portals. It is hoped that findings from this study will contribute to the standard ontology used to update university’s web sites in Malaysia

Assessing Gender Disparity in Job Satisfaction: A Bayesian Approach

This study demonstrates the use of Bayesian independent samples t-test to illustrate gender disparity in job satisfaction. Results from this state-wide study involving over 4000 employees in private companies in Sarawak, Malaysia shows male employees are generally more satisfied in job satisfaction as compared to their female counterparts. This finding casts doubt on the contented female worker paradox, which refers to the notion that although women received fewer job-related benefits in the workplace, they are just as satisfied (or more satisfied) with their jobs. Poor reproducibility of the findings is causing more confusion on gender disparity in job satisfaction. Frequentist approaches have dominated the field of Psychology thus far. Prior researches on gender disparity were centred mainly based on p-values and null hypothesis significant testing (NHST). Instead of making an inference based on a cut-off value of 0.05, it is more intuitive and convincing to illustrate the weight of the evidence favouring a given hypothesis using likelihood ratio of one hypothesis to the other

System Usability Scale Formula as Alternative for Calculating Composite Score of Likert-type Items

Since its conception, Likert Scales have been used extensively in various fields. There are many ways to describe data obtained with Likert scales. In Human Factors research, System Usability Scale (SUS) is a widely adapted Likert Scale instrument to assess the usability of various products and systems. Researchers often have the tendency to modify SUS to fit their context of use, leading to various versions of SUS. Calculation of the composite score for SUS instrument does not involve computation of arithmetic mean/sum and re-coding of statements. SUS formula obtains the score for each Likert-type items and convert them into a single scale range from 0 to 100. Although SUS is a popular instrument, there is no formula introduced to facilitate the calculation of scale. This article aims to introduce a formula to facilitate the calculation of various versions of SUS with different number of items, number of positive and negative statements, as well as scale size. Although primarily meant for SUS practitioners, the formula presented can be used for any instrument adapting Likert-type items should the researchers decide to transform responses into 0-100 scale instead of computation of mean or sum for various statistical analyses. The controversial computation of mean for Likert Scales has been subjected to decades of debate. This article demonstrates an alternate method to calculate composite score of Likert-type items based on calculation of SUS. Results show the formula yield the same results and perfect relationship with mean and sum for various tests, indicating it can be used as an alternative to mean and sum as a composite score of Likert-types items

Association between Behavioral Intentions and Knowledge Sharing ; Are Demographics Influential*

Objective: Globally, the inadequate level of knowledge sharing is considered as an increasing concern among educational institutes, impacting educational quality and job performance. Thereby, the study aims to assess the association between behavioral intentions and knowledge sharing by using the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). It also examines the influence of the demographic factors on knowledge sharing behavior. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used in this study including a total of 630 academicians from the four educational institutes (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Universiti Teknologi MARA Sarawak, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Bintulu and Politeknik Kuching) based on a survey approach. The collected data were analyzed statistically using PLS SMART- SEM. Results: The results revealed a significant impact of age, gender, work experience, designation, and education on behavioral intentions and knowledge sharing. It also showed a direct association between behavioral intention and knowledge sharing. Conclusion: The study concludes that collaborative practices should be encouraged among academicians for creating a knowledge sharing culture