DEVELOPING AND VALIDATING THE MEASUREMENT MODEL FOR FINANCIAL LITERACY CONSTRUCT USING CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS

Purpose of the study: This study aims to develop and validate the instruments measuring financial Literacy construct. Methodology: The pilot study randomly sampled some 100 school-teachers using a self-administered questionnaire. The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) procedure has explored the usefulness of measuring items and determined the dimensionality of the construct. Finally, using the newly developed instruments, the field study obtained a random sample of 300 school-teachers to survey using a self-administered questionnaire. The data from the field were used to validate the instruments through the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) procedure. Main Findings: The EFA procedure found three components that emerged from the items. The CFA procedure validated the instruments measuring Financial Literacy construct for uni-dimensionality, validity, and reliability. Applications of this study: The result showed that the measurement model of the Financial Literacy construct achieved the requirement for construct validity and reliability and should be able to be used in the future of research. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study produced instruments to assess Financial Literacy performance specifically among school teachers in Malaysia. School teachers consist of the highest number of employees in the country besides their nature of works and job characteristics differ from another group of employees

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP IN THE SEWERAGE OPERATION INDUSTRY IN MALAYSIA: A CASE OF INDAH WATER KONSORTIUMPRIVATE LIMITED (IWK)

Purpose: This study intends to determine the importance of Supportive Leadership in the sewerage operation industry since the nature of work itself, together with workload and pressure, has resulted in severe occupational stress among the workers; consequently, it would translate into poor work commitment. Methodology: The random sample was obtained from the sampling frame, which consists of employees of the sewerage operation company in Malaysia, namely, Indah water Konsortium (IWK). Data was gathered using a self-administered questionnaire given to the randomly selected respondents. Meanwhile, data were analyzed using the second-generation method of multivariate analysis called Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in IBM-SPSS-AMOS 24.0. Furthermore, the results were reconfirmed through bootstrapping procedures. Result: The study found Supportive Leadership fully mediates the relationship between Occupational Stress and Work Commitment. The finding of this research indicates that in this particular industry, Supportive Leadership is extremely important to transform from negative Work Commitment to positive and significant Work Commitment from the employees. Applications: The management of sewerage operation industries needs to be supportive of their workers in order to obtain a positive and significant commitment from the workers amid the work pressure and stress. Novelty/Originality: Unlike other industries, the sewerage operation industry (in Malaysia) is pre-occupied with work burden and under tremendous work pressure. The study that links occupational stress and work commitment are scarce, especially in this particular industry, and in developing countries like Malaysia

THE IMPACT OF EMPLOYEE SAFETY CLIMATE ON SAFETY BEHAVIOR IN SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Purpose of the study: The objective of this study is to examine the mediation effect of ESC on the relationship between climate constructs and intention to Safety in small and medium enterprises. Methodology: A structured self-administrative questionnaire was distributed to the employee of the small-medium enterprise in Peninsular Malaysia using simple random sampling. The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) procedure were carried out to filter the items and validate the constructs in the study. The study tested the proposed hypotheses using the second-generation method of multivariate analysis Structural Equation Modelling (SEM. Furthermore, the results were confirmed through the bootstrapping procedure. All analysis of this study was conducted using IBM-SPSS-AMOS version 24.0. Main Findings: All items retained from EFA results were rearranged for the field study questionnaire. The CFA results indicated that the absolute fit index (RMSEA= 0.071) CFI = 0.975, TLC = 0.964, chisq/df = 2.431 achieved the requirement level. The results of this present study revealed that employee safety climate mediated the relationship between WO, IWE, and intention to safety behavior. Additionally, results indicated that ESC is the most prominent factor of intention to safety behavior. Applications of this study: The results from this study contribute to the improvement of proactive safety performance measures in small-medium enterprises, but further efforts are required for achieving an excellent safety performance level. Novelty/Originality of this study: The present study adds to the literature of safety performance and provides direction for future research work in this area. Additionally, the results of this present study mark an important step towards standardizing the measurement of safety climate in small and medium industries

Parameter penulisan wasatiyyah pendakwah untuk menangani ekstremis Melayu muslim menerusi media sosial

Fenomena ekstremisme agama bukanlah perkara baru dalam kehidupan manusia. Perkembangan teknologi dalam dunia kini secara tidak langsung cuba menjejaskan kehidupan orang Melayu Islam khususnya dalam penulisan di media sosial. Kumpulan ekstremis menjadikan media sosial sebagai salah satu platform untuk menyebarkan ideologi mereka. Medium tanpa sempadan ini menyebabkan kumpulan pelampau menyebarkan maklumat secara bebas dan mudah sehingga menyebabkan masyarakat Melayu Islam terpedaya dengan fahaman ekstrem. Pelbagai tulisan yang berbentuk ekstremis dan longgar bertebaran dalam masyarakat seperti tulisan yang mengelirukan tanpa ada sandaran rujukan, berita yang dipenuhi dengan fitnah, berita yang tidak benar, tulisan yang memburukkan ulama silam dan tulisan yang meragui kesahihannya tanpa menggunakan kaedah yang betul. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji parameter penulisan pendakwah wasatiyyah dalam menangani pelampau Melayu Islam. Kajian ini diperoleh menggunakan metodologi kualitatif iaitu melalui kaedah temu bual dengan 4 orang informan dan melalui perbincangan meja bulat yang terdiri daripada 5 orang panel. Pemilihan informan ditentukan secara persampelan bertujuan. Data yang diperolehi dianalisis secara deskriptif menggunakan perisian Atlas.ti. Hasil kajian ini mendapati bahawa antara parameter pemikiran wasatiyyah pendakwah dalam menangani pelampau Melayu Islam ialah pembuktian kaedah (manhaj) pembuktian yang sah dan tepat menurut ahli sunnah wal jamaah, sumber rujukan yang muktabar dan mengiktiraf kesarjanaan keilmuan silam. Implikasi daripada ukuran ini boleh dijadikan panduan kepada pendakwah dalam menangani golongan ekstremis Melayu Islam

Optimized medium via statistical approach enhanced threonine production by Pediococcus pentosaceus TL-3 isolated from Malaysian food

Background: Threonine is an essential amino acid that is extensively used in livestock industry as feed supplement due to its pronounced effect in improving the growth performance of animals. Application of genetically engineered bacteria for amino acid production has its share of controversies after eosinophils myalgia syndrome outbreak in 1980s. This has urged for continuous search for a food grade producer as a safer alternative for industrial amino acid production. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) appear as an exceptional candidate owing to their non-pathogenic nature and reputation of Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status. Recently, we have identified a LAB, Pediococcus pentosaceus TL-3, isolated from Malaysian food as a potential threonine producer. Thus, the objective of this study was to enhance the threonine production by P. pentosaceus TL-3 via optimized medium developed by using Plackett–Burman design (PBD) and central composite design (CCD). Results: Molasses, meat extract, (NH4)2SO4, and MnSO4 were identified as the main medium components for threonine production by P. pentosaceus TL-3. The optimum concentration of molasses, meat extract, (NH4)2SO4 and MnSO4 were found to be 30.79 g/L, 25.30 g/L, 8.59 g/L, and 0.098 g/L respectively based on model obtained in CCD with a predicted net threonine production of 123.07 mg/L. The net threonine production by P. pentosaceus TL-3 in the optimized medium was enhanced approximately 2 folds compared to the control. Conclusions: This study has revealed the potential of P. pentosaceus TL-3 as a safer alternative to produce threonine. Additionally, the current study has identified the key medium components affecting the production of threonine by P. pentosaceus TL-3, followed by optimization of their concentrations by means of statistical approach. The findings of this study could act as a guideline for the future exploration of amino acid production by LAB

Compilation and Code Optimization for Data Analytics

The trade-offs between the use of modern high-level and low-level programming languages in constructing complex software artifacts are well known. High-level languages allow for greater programmer productivity: abstraction and genericity allow for the same functionality to be implemented with significantly less code compared to low-level languages. Modularity, object-orientation, functional programming, and powerful type systems allow programmers not only to create clean abstractions and protect them from leaking, but also to define code units that are reusable and easily composable, and software architectures that are adaptable and extensible. The abstraction, succinctness, and modularity of high-level code help to avoid software bugs and facilitate debugging and maintenance. The use of high-level languages comes at a performance cost: increased indirection due to abstraction, virtualization, and interpretation, and superfluous work, particularly in the form of tempory memory allocation and deallocation to support objects and encapsulation. As a result of this, the cost of high-level languages for performance-critical systems may seem prohibitive. The vision of abstraction without regret argues that it is possible to use high-level languages for building performance-critical systems that allow for both productivity and high performance, instead of trading off the former for the latter. In this thesis, we realize this vision for building different types of data analytics systems. Our means of achieving this is by employing compilation. The goal is to compile away expensive language features -- to compile high-level code down to efficient low-level code

Investigation of capabilities of electromagnetic tomography for pipeline imaging

In industrial process, pipeline leakage often only noticeable pipe condition is critical henceforth causing damages to its internal content. Therefore, pipeline inspection and monitoring work is highly demanding to take early precautions. Electromagnetic Tomography (EMT) is capable to produce images of the internal structure of an object by using external sensors without disrupting it. The coil sensors are placed around the object where the source coil transmits an oscillating magnetic field while the rest acts as receiver and measure the received signals. The measured signal provides the magnetic field distribution of the pipe, and will differ according to the materials’ passive electrical properties. In this paper, we investigate the capability of using EMT to identify metallic pipe openings by conducting a finite element analysis simulation study. The design and parameters of the EMT system, as well as the results of using the EMT model to detect various degree of metallic pipe openings is presented. The results confirm that the EMT imaging as a promising tool for inspection of metallic pipelines where the magnetic field of the investigated region differs according to the pipe opening and material of the pipeline

Extracellular proteolytic activity and amino acid production by lactic acid bacteria isolated from Malaysian foods

Amino acids (AAs) are vital elements for growth, reproduction, and maintenance of organisms. Current technology uses genetically engineered microorganisms for AAs production, which has urged the search for a safer food-grade AA producer strain. The extracellular proteolytic activities of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) can be a vital tool to hydrolyze extracellular protein molecules into free AAs, thereby exhibiting great potential for functional AA production. In this study, eight LAB isolated from Malaysian foods were determined for their extracellular proteolytic activities and their capability of producing AAs. All studied LAB exhibited versatile extracellular proteolytic activities from acidic to alkaline pH conditions. In comparison, Pediococcus pentosaceus UP-2 exhibited the highest ability to produce 15 AAs extracellularly, including aspartate, lysine, methionine, threonine, isoleucine, glutamate, proline, alanine, valine, leucine, tryptophan, tyrosine, serine, glycine, and cystine, followed by Pediococcus pentosaceus UL-2, Pediococcus acidilactici UB-6, and Pediococcus acidilactici UP-1 with 11 to 12 different AAs production detected extracellularly. Pediococcus pentosaceus UL-6 demonstrated the highest increment of proline production at 24 h of incubation. However, Pediococcus acidilactici UL-3 and Lactobacillus plantarum I-UL4 exhibited the greatest requirement for AA. The results of this study showed that different LAB possess different extracellular proteolytic activities and potentials as extracellular AA producers