Reviving and preserving the values of Malay traditional costume (MTC) in Malaysia / Zainudin Md Nor

The purpose of this study is to identify the pattern development and values of the Malay Traditional Costumes (MTCs) which have always been said by researchers and local culturalists as being eroded by the effects of modernization. The main research focuses on the outfits of the Malay females and males. It is also related to its headgears and accessories. This research identifies and justifies the factors that contribute to the best environment to maintain the methods, values and cultures of wearing traditional Malay costumes. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in conducting the research. The study used questionnaire survey, interviews and observation. Direct and indirect questions were used as an interview method. It also involved participants' observation and inspection of the costume artefacts. 78 pieces of old Malay costumes were seen and recorded for analysis. The researcher also interviewed 60 respondents who were experienced and experts in their field of making and styling traditional Malay costumes; such as old tailors and old dressmakers, fashion designers, industrialists, choreographers, culturalists, researchers and lecturers. The questionnaire was also forwarded to 26 teachers and 380 secondary school students in Perak, Kedah, Penang and Perlis. A small group of the respondents was chosen as a case study as they were able to produce, maintain and restore the traditional Malay costumes. The findings show that there is a significant relationship among five component values for future development and sustainability in the MTCs which are cultural and heritage values, educational values, art and aesthetic values, design and functional values and lastly socio economic values. This research has also found that the documentation on the development of pattern, style and cutting of the MTCs is relevant and can help to perpetuate it for future generations. The existence of ethics, philosophy, artistic (symbol) and aesthetic (meaning) values of the MTCs contributes new knowledge to the public. MTCs also have a relationship with other forms of Malay art such as architecture, literature, social manner and Islamic values. In conclusion the policy makers or government agencies, NGOs, practitioners, researchers, media and institutions of higher learning can play a major role in reviving and preserving the value of MTCs. This research recommends that integration among these groups is a vital factor that contributes to the creation of a model of good practice for future development of Malay traditional costumes in Malaysia

Element the good practice in reviving and preserving the value of MTCs / Zainudin Md Nor ... [et. al]

The purpose of this study is to identify the values of the Malay Traditional Costume (MTCs) which have always been said by researches and local cultural as being eroded by the effect of modernization. This research justifies factors that contribute the best practises to revive the values of MTCs in Malaysia. A quantitative and qualitative method was used to conduct the research. The study involves questionnaire survey and interviews. Direct and indirect questions were used as an interview method. The researcher has interviewed 60 respondents who are experienced and expert in their field of the making and styling of the traditional Malay costume; such as old tailors and old dressmakers, fashion designers, industrialist, choreographers, culturalist, researchers and lecturers. The questionnaires were also forwarded to 26 teachers and 380 secondary school students Perak, Kedah, Penang and Perlis states. A small group of the respondents were chosen as a case study as they were able to produce, maintain and restore the traditional Malay costume. The findings showed that there were a significance relationship among five component values for future development and ustainability in the MTCs which are cultural and heritage values, educational values, art and aesthetic values, design and functional values and lastly socio economic values. As a conclusion there were 4 elements they can play a major role in reviving and preserving the value of MTCs; the teaching and learning of MTCs in higher institutes of learning, the involvement of royal families, NGO’s and activists. Thirdly is the involvement of local fashion designers, fashion entrepreneur and government agencies. The final factor is the best technique to appreciate MTC as a national culture. This research recommended that integration among these groups are factors that contribute to the creation of model of good practice for future development of Malay traditional costume in Malaysia

Student-Teachers’ Perception of the Preparedness to Engage in Online Teaching, and Challenges They Face When Teaching Online: A Corpus Analysis of Their Reflexive Journal Entries

The Covid19 pandemic changed the way almost everything is done, including teaching. Online teaching rose to become the quintessential way mode of teaching in weeks after being in relative obscurity the two decades of its existence. Online teaching is now prominent, but research shows that we are still lacking knowledge in almost every human aspect involved in online teaching. This study focusses on student-teachers’ perceptions of their own preparedness to teach online and the challenges they face when teaching online. This is done by looking into the primary keywords or concepts the student-teachers use in their own writing. Language is our ubiquitous tool by which we look into the minds of fellow human beings. Accordingly, this study looks at a body of language (corpus) compiled from the reflective journals produced by 23 student-teachers as part of their final assessment portfolio (+700 pages, +800,000 words). These journals embody their thoughts during their practical teaching experience. The analysis is carried out using a concordancer program. By analysing this corpus, we will, (1) identify the most prominently occurring content words, and (2) the most prominently occurring words relative to the prominent keywords. The resulting semantic web will display the concepts the preoccupy the concerns of these respondents thus giving us an insight into possible areas that we need to focus on in our efforts to remedy and enhance our online teaching capabilities. Initial findings show that the most prominent word in their writing ‘students’ with technical and technology concerns falling far behind

A Case Study: Issues, Challenges and Coping Strategies of Student-Teachers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study explores the issues, challenges and student-teachers’ coping strategies of teaching in a classroom setting during this challenging time of the Covid-19 pandemic in a new instructional setting of online classes that replace the face-to-face classroom interaction. Purposeful sampling was employed in studying 24 student-teachers’ reflective journals through content analysis. The findings showed that most student-teachers were positive and able to cope with the issues if enough time were given to them. Based on the themes emerging from the text analysis, class management and class organisation were not the main issue. However, other main issues such as Internet accessibility and full cooperation from the students were more challenging and the actual learning engagement for the receiving end appears to be compromised due to some teachers who were inadequately trained for online instruction. (Abstract by authors

Identification and Characterization of Fungi Associated with Leaf Spot Disease of Rubber Trees (Hevea brasiliensis) in Pahang, Malaysia

Rubber trees are important sources of agricultural income as they are utilized for lumber and latex. Like other crops, they are susceptible to numerous fungal pathogens, especially on their leaves, the most important plant part. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the fungi associated with leaf spot disease on the leaves of rubber trees. This study aimed to characterize fungi associated with diseased rubber leaves and determine the causative agent of leaf spot disease. A total of 20 fungal isolates were obtained and purified from rubber leaves collected during sampling in rubber plantations in Pahang, Malaysia. All the isolated fungi were identified as Colletotrichum siamense (2 isolates), Diaporthe sp. (5 isolates), Lasiodiplodia pseudotheobromae (1 isolate), L. theobromae (7 isolates) and Neoscytalidium sp. (5 isolates). Based on a pathogenicity test, it was found that nine isolates were pathogenic towards the leaves of rubber, which were L. theobromae, L. pseudotheobromae, and C. siamense. The lesions on the leaves displayed chlorosis with varying necrotic lesion sizes after 21 days post-inoculation. The isolates of the species L. theobromae were the most prevalent, indicating it is more widespread in the region than other species. The findings present data on the potential pathogen of rubber plants and are important to understand further the potential risks and effects of the pathogen in rubber plantation

Majority voting of ensemble classifiers to improve shoreline extraction of medium resolution satellite images

Coastal zones are constantly exposed to changes caused by natural processes, anthropogenic activities or both, which can precariously alter the coastal landscapes of many countries. Thus, monitoring of coastal zones is needed to provide important information about current conditions of a countrys coastal areas by examining changes that are taking place. In this respect, such monitoring can be carried out by traditional ground survey, airborne aerial photo, or remote sensing. However, the former is more effective and efficient as it can extract vital boundary information from satellite images using appropriate image analysis. Nonetheless, shoreline extraction has a number of challenges, and many methods have been proposed to improve such extraction, such as the use of machine learning methods. Thus, this study was carried out to determine the most effective ensemble voting classifier based on two different types of classifiers, comprising 11 single classifiers and 4 ensemble classifiers. Performance criteria of the classifiers were based on the overall accuracy, training time, and testing time. The analysis of the experimental data revealed several interesting results. First, for the combination of single and ensemble classifiers, ensemble classifiers with majority voting of Random Forest and Support Vector Machine RBF kernel were the most effective classifiers, attaining high overall accuracy. Second, for the combination of two single classifiers, Multilayer Perceptron and k-Nearest Neighbor attained high overall accuracy, rendering them as the most effective classifiers in this category of classifiers. Third, there were trade-offs between performance measures, as increased overall accuracy was accompanied by longer training and testing time in the performance of such classifiers as both of voting-based ensemble classifiers increased significantly

Turnover intention among Malaysian operators in electrical and electronics sub-sector: Leadership style perspective

Job turnover is traditionally faced by organizations in many industries.Resource wastage and low productivity can be derived from turnover issue.Turnover intention was found to be a reliable predictor of actual turnover in previous studies.Consequently, this cries for some insights on turnover intention issue, especially within Malaysian context.This paper will concentrate on determining the relationship of leadership style on turnover intention among manufacturing operators in focusing on Electrical and Electronics sub-sector.The survey was taken amongst the operators of manufacturing industry in Peninsular Malaysia (N=800).Considering that Malaysia manufacturing industry has recorded a substantial economic growth through heavy investment in economic activities, it is significant for all manufacturing companies to retain talented employees and reduce turnover problem in order to be more competitive.The findings had accepted the research hypothesis. Dimensions of leadership style (i.e.transactional) had significantly correlated and contributed to the turnover intention.The findings had contributed to the theoretical significance through the examination of direct relationships between leadership style on turnover intention among local operators in manufacturing sector based on the high turnover rate in Malaysia manufacturing sector between the years 2008 until early of 2011

Ciri-ciri Panggilan Katak Borneo (Genus: Hylarana) daripada Populasi Sarawak, Malaysia

Recordings of Bornean frog calls from the genus Hylarana were conducted at seven study sites in Sarawak, Malaysia. As many as 12 individuals from five species of Bornean frogs were successfully recorded and analysed. From 38 calling parameters, only 27 could explain call characteristics of the Bornean frogs. The size of male frogs influenced the energy of calling significantly between 90:50% of the peak amplitude, frequency of note between 50%, duration of calling to reach half of the frequency modulation, and the rate of repeated note. The size of Bornean frog showed a marginally significant difference in the basic frequency and dominant calls. Additionally, distribution of calling parameters and Euclid dendogram support taxonomic identifications of each of the Bornean frog species studied

DIVERSITY OF ENDOPHYTIC FUNGI ASSOCIATED WITH FRUITS AND LEAVES OF TAMARIND (Tamarindusindica L.) BASED O N ITS RIBOSOMAL DNA SEQUENCES

Plant-associated microbes are among the important natural resources that abundantly exist in natural environment such as endophytic fungi. The studies on endophytic fungi in medicinal plants have allowed the discovery of numerous fungi species and their hidden potentials. Therefore, this study focused on the isolation and identification of endophytic fungi from several plant parts of tamarind such as leaves and fruits. A total of 69 fungal cultures were successfully isolated and identified into 33 distinct species from 14 genera based on morphological characteristics and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis using a Maximum Likelihood method. There were six different species obtained from the genus Colletotrichum (C. aenigma, C. brevisporum, C. cobbittiense, C. fructicola, C. gloeosporioides and C. siamense), and Diaporthe (D. arecae, D. ceratozamiae, D. phaseolorum, D. pseudomangiferae, D. pseudooculi  and D. pseudophoenicicola), four species of Aspergillus (A. aculeatus, A. carbonarius, A. flavus and A. tubingensis), three species of Curvularia (C. aeria , C. geniculata and C. lunata) and Nigrospora (N. lacticolonia, N. oryzae and N. sphaerica), two species of Lasiodiplodia (L. pseudotheobromae and L. theobromae) and Penicillium (P. rolfsii and P. verruculosum). Other fungal species that were also identified are Botryosphaeria mamane, Fusarium solani, Perenniporia tephropora, Phyllosticta fallopiae, Sarcostroma bisetulatum, Trichoderma asperellum and Xylaria feejeensis. The isolates were grouped into different clades according to their class. In conclusion, endophytic fungi isolated from tamarind plant are diverse and provides an insight into species diversity of endophytic fungi in tamarind

Integration of taguchi-grey relational analysis technique in parameter process optimization for rice husk composite

Injection molding is a widely used manufacturing process operation that generates polymer products. The selection of optimal injection molding process settings is essential due to the distinct influences of process parameters on polymeric material behavior and quality, particularly during the injection process. Therefore, it is vital to determine the optimized process parameters to enhance the mechanical properties of the products and ensure the most favorable performance. This paper examined the integration of Taguchi’s method with grey relational analysis (GRA) to determine the effects of varied injection molding parameters on the mechanical properties such as tensile strength and hardness values. The experiments were designed using Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array after weighing in control factors, such as melting temperature, injection pressure, injection speed, and cooling time. The GRA revealed that the multiple responses correlation was successfully established. Finally, an analysis of variance was performed to validate the test outputs. The results revealed that the most influential factor was injection pressure, sequentially followed by melting temperature, cooling time, and injection speed