Studies on the Relative Merits of Popular Commercial Orchid Hybrids and Their Clonal Derivatives

Two orchid hybrids, Aranda Chris tine and Aranda Kooi Choo with seven clone seach, were studied with respect to the variations of morphological characters of their flowers prays. The shelf life of cut flowers and production of flowers were also investi gated. Highly significant differences occurred between clones of Aranda Christine. The length of spray was positively correlated with the length of scape, length of rachis, flower internodes and the average horizontal measurements. Clone numbers 80 and 130 had long. sprays while clone number 05 had the shortest. Clone swith long scapes tended to have long rachis and long flower internodes. Thelong rachis normally had larger flowers resulting in a negative correlation with the shelf life. The highest producer was clone number I but analysis did not show superior result sin all the parameters observed. The clones of Aranda Kooi Choo showed highly significant differences between them. The long sprays tended to have long rachis and larger flowers. Thus the flowers prays of Aranda Kooi Choo were stiff and strong. Clones with large f lowers were clone" numbers 2, 4 and 5 with clone number 2 also having the widest diameter of scape. Clone number 3 had the smallest flowers. Length of flower inter node and shelf life were not correlated to any o f the parameters studied. Clone number I has the longest shelf life but the re were no significant difference among other clones. Clone numbers 3 and 7 were high producing with clone number 2 as the lowest producer

Parliamentary Interpreting in Malaysia: A Case Study

This article seeks to describe the current scenario of parliamentary interpreting in Malaysia by studying the interpreters’ work nature, aptitude and qualifications as well as remuneration and promotional opportunity. It also highlights the important aspects of the profession such as job mystification, training and continuing education, the connection between the training centres and the professional environment, the need to educate the public through the establishment of professional associations, and the implementation of an ethics code as well as the sense of professionalism among the interpreters. The author also proposes ways to improve the situation which would contribute to the professionalisation of interpreting in the Malaysian Parliament particularly and in Malaysia in general.Le présent article traite de la situation actuelle de l’interprétation parlementaire en Malaisie. Il fait état d’une recherche centrée sur les caractéristiques de ce type d’interprétation, l’aptitude des interprètes parlementaires, leur formation universitaire, leur rémunération ainsi que leurs possibilités de promotion. Il prend aussi en compte certains aspects cruciaux de la profession, à savoir l’idéalisation dont elle fait l’objet, la formation continue, la relation entre les centres de formation, l’ambiance de travail, la nécessité d’informer le public grâce à la mise en oeuvre d’un réseau d’associations professionnelles, l’établissement d’un code de déontologie et l’émergence du professionnalisme chez les interprètes. L’auteur fait une série de propositions visant à améliorer l’exercice de cette profession, ce qui pourrait contribuer à la professionnalisation de l’interprétation non seulement au Parlement de Malaisie, mais aussi dans le reste du pays

A proof of concept on real-time air quality monitoring system

According to the Department of Environment Malaysia, Air Pollutant Index (API) is an indicator for the air quality status at any particular area. API is calculated based on average concentration of air pollutants such as Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), ground level Ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM10), each over their respective period of averaging time. A sub-index for each pollutant is determined separately based on a predetermined standard and the highest sub- index is used as the API (Department of Environment Malaysia, 2000). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) (2010) defines PM10 as "Inhalable coarse particles," such as those found near roadways and dusty industries, are larger than 2.5 micrometers and smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2010). Typically, the concentration PM10 is the highest among all pollutants in Malaysia and therefore it determines the API value (APIMS DOE Malaysia, 2015)

Automatic Generation of test Cases from Use-Case Diagram

Intelligent searching techniques have been developed in order to provide a solution to the issue of finding information relevant to the user needs, and the problem of information overload - when far too much information is returned from a search. We employ this technique to introduce an automatic tool which used to generate the test cases automatically according to the system’s requirement. The tool uses two steps for generating test cases. First, the system’s requirements are transformed into a Unified Modeling Language (UML) Use-case Diagram. Second, the test cases will be automatic generated according to the use cases respectively. In the workspace, the ToolBox is used in order to ease the drawing of the use-case diagram. As well as allowing a user to layout the requirements of the system via a use-case diagram in the provided workspace, a user also may type-in the properties for each of the use cases used. Once the use- case diagram has been finalized, it can be save for further used and modification. The engine of the tool will take the use cases from the use-case diagram and search the query string (keyword) used in the tool’s library. The searching engine uses both search keyword and additional information of the use-case diagram. This combination will result in improving data retrieval performance. Once the use case used matches the keyword inside the tool’s library, the engine will automatically generate its respective test cases according to its use case

Unsur semiotik dalam wacana iklan kecantikan

Dalam wacana iklan kecantikan wanita, unsur semiotik merupakan elemen yang paling penting dan berperanan besar dalam menyampaikan konsep dan mesej mengenai sesuatu produk yang ingin diiklankan. Imej visual dikatakan lebih efektif dan lebih memberi makna daripada seribu perkataan dan memainkan peranan yang amat penting bagi menarik perhatian pengguna dan dalam masa yang sama sebagai alat yang membentuk hubungan dialektikal antara pewacana dan khalayak. Dalam masyarakat Jepun yang homogen, monolitik dan monoetnik, penelitian menunjukkan bahawa terdapat intervensi pengaplikasian imej wanita kaukasia Oksidental dalam penghasilan wacana iklan produk kecantikan di Jepun. Makalah ini membincangkan mekanisme unsur semiotik yang berkiblatkan ideologi kecantikan dari Barat yang dimanfaatkan dalam 23 teks iklan produk kecantikan wanita dalam bahasa Jepun. Analisis adalah berdasarkan pendekatan analisis wacana, kaedah Fairclough (2001). Penginterpretasian menunjukkan bahawa pewacana telah memanfaatkan semaksimum mungkin nilai, imej serta stereotaip etnobudaya yang positif dan berprestij tinggi yang dibawa oleh negara-negara Barat. Keghairahan wanita Jepun dalam meniru gaya wanita kaukasia Oksidental yang dianggap sebagai ‘simbol budaya dunia’ dan ‘kecantikan universal’ dari segi berpakaian, cara solekan, dandanan rambut, bentuk fizikal raut wajah dan tubuh badan dimanfaatkan sebaik mungkin oleh pewacana dalam mencetus, membina dan menanam ideologi kecantikan oksidental bagi mempengaruhi, menarik perhatian dan minat wanita Jepun terhadap sesuatu produk kecantikan

TEGDroid: Test Case Generation Approach for Android Apps Considering Context and GUI Events

The advancement in mobile technologies has led to the production of mobile devices (e.g. smartphone) with rich innovative features. This has enabled the development of mobile applications that offer users an advanced and extremely localized context-aware content. The recent dependence of people on mobile applications for various computational needs poses a significant concern on the quality of mobile applications. In order to build a high quality and more reliable applications, there is a need for effective testing techniques to test the applications. Most existing testing technique focuses on GUI events only without sufficient support for context events. This makes it difficult to identify other defects in the changes that can be inclined by context in which an application runs. This paper presents an approach named TEGDroid for generating test case for Android Apps considering both context and GUI Events. The GUI and context events are identified through the static analysis of bytecode, and the analysis of app’s permission from the XML file. An experiment was performed on real world mobile apps to evaluate TEGDroid. Our experimental results show that TEGDroid is effective in identifying context events and had 65%-91% coverage across the eight selected applications. To evaluate the fault detection capability of this approach, mutation testing was performed by introducing mutants to the applications. Results from the mutation analysis shows that 100% of the mutants were killed. This indicates that TEGDroid have the capability to detect faults in mobile apps

Anatomy of symbiotic fungal endophytes in Psilotum nudum (L.) P. Beauv

A study was undertaken to identify the presence of fungal endophyte in fern plant, Psilotum nudum. Being the only living species of a once populated division, P. nudum is the most primitive vascular plant. Cross section of stipe and rhizoid parts was done to observe the presence of endophyte within parenchyma cells. Samples of P. nudum were collected at different sites in Bangi. Anatomical study showed P. nudum has percentage of infected cells highest in rhizoid parenchyma cortex (22.2%) and lowest in the apical area (3.1%). Eleven fungal endophyte isolates were successfully isolated and identified from P. nudum with Aspergillus being the major genus. Is Aspergillus a host-specific endophyte? The present study shows the compatibility of P. nudum parenchyma cells as a host to fungal endophyte

On the convergence of two point block backward differentiation formula for second order ODEs

The Two Point Block Backward Differentiation Formula (BBDF2) is a direct solver for second order Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). It had shown its efficiency by having less total number of steps and less computational time over the first order ODEs solver. In this paper, the convergence of the BBDF2 is justified by its consistency and zero-stability properties

Comparative Evaluation of String Metrics for Context Ontology Database

Static Context Code Coverage Program (SCCCP) is a program developed to calculate the coverage of context code in a Java file of an Android application. The database built for SCCCP includes records on location and speech context, exclusive to Android. There is a huge need for string matching algorithm since strings from the source codes and database have to be checked for any similarity first before moving on to the calculation of context coverage. Therefore, three different string metrics were analyzed prior to choosing the most suitable one for SCCCP. In this paper, the results obtained from using JaroWinkler, Levenshtein, and Strike a Match string distance metrics are analyzed based on the task of matching the source codes with database records and other pair of strings. Some issues related during our experiment on source code matching are discussed in this paper. The findings conclude that Strike a Match algorithm is the best option since it gives the highest accuracy among others

Comparative Evaluation of the State-of-art Requirements-based Test Case Generation Approaches

The overall aim of software testing is to deliver the error-free and high-quality software products to the end users. The testing process ensures that a software is aligned with the user specification and requirements.  In software testing process, there are many challenging tasks however test case generation process is considered as the most challenging one. The quality of the generated test cases has a significant impact on efficiency and effectiveness of the testing process.  In order to improve the quality of a developed software, the test cases should be able to achieve maximum adequacy in the testing and requirements' coverage. This paper presents a comparative evaluation of the prominent requirement-based test case generation approaches. Five evaluation criteria namely, inputs for test case generation, transformation techniques, coverage criteria, time and tool's support are defined to systematically compare the approaches. The results of the evaluation are used to identify the gap in the current approaches and research opportunities in requirement-based test case's generation.