The influence of cognitive satisfaction on the relationship between salesperson presentation skills and customer's intention to repurchase

The application of sales presentation skills by the sales force during their interaction with customers in the sales situation can have a significant effect on customer intention to repurchase in the Malaysian Computer retail business. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relations between important sales presentation skills and the relative roles played by cognition in the development of customer satisfaction which will lead to customer’s intention to repurchase in a computer retail setting in Malaysia. This will then lead to increased benefits for the organization in the form of customer loyalty. The cognitive evaluation of customer satisfaction was found to explain customer’s intention to repurchase in a retail setting in the Malaysian market. This finding holds importance to those retailers who have been able to generate high expectations in the eyes of their customers

Ethical Leadership, Ethical Climate and Unethical Behaviour in Institutions of Higher Learning

Issues related to unethical behaviour is not common nowadays; and they are also the problem of higher learning institutions. This study is conducted to find out the factors that influence the intention to perform unethical behaviour in higher learning institutions in Malaysia. This paper provides some insights into the issues of unethical behaviour, specifically the behaviour of lecturers. Ethical leadership and ethical climate are identified to be the variables that might influence the intention to perform such behaviour. It then discusses the importance of ethical leadership and ethical climate in shaping the ethical conduct in higher learning institutions

BRAND ASSOCIATION ATTRIBUTES FOR INDONESIAN NATIONAL AIRLINE

Brand image, in brief is a series of private values that perceived by company to create identity of its product or service. Brand Association is anything related memory to brand (Tjiptono, 2005). Brand Association is one of assets of brand equity, which shows advantages and differences of a product or service while a person recall the brand of product or service. This paper is a research to discover brand attributes associated in consumers’ mind that create brand image of state owned national airline (Garuda Indonesia-GI), and then to discover harmonization between brand identity with brand image. The respondents of this research are passengers of GI airline at Sukamo-Hatta airport. Cochran test is one of methods applied in this paper. The result of this research shows that there are six brand associations which create GI brand image, but brand identity has not yet stuck completely in consumer’s mind, although there are three additional brand image perceived by consumers. These show that there is a positive gap which bring advantages to company. Company must also maintain the harmony of built brand image and brand identity to avoid the creation of negative gap

Design and Simulation of Control Systems for Field Survey Mobile Robot Platform.

The aim of this study was to design automatic and accurate control systems for wheel speed and steering of an agricultural mobile robot. Three controllers, including lead-lag compensator, Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and fuzzy logic controller were designed and simulated in this study to control the angular rate of the shaft of a DC motor actuator for a field survey mobile robot that moves between plants rows to perform image acquisition task through a digital camera mounted on a two link arm attached on the robot base. The response of the actuator model for each controller were determined and compared for a sinusoidal and a step input that simulated robot speed and positioning references respectively. Performance analysis showed the effectiveness of the PID and lead-lag compensator response for the wheel steering task, while the fuzzy logic controller design had a better performance in wheel speed control. The output of this analysis was a proved satisfaction of the proposed design criteria which results enhanced mobility of the robot in terms of fast response, speed control accuracy and smooth steering at row-end turnings

Ketagihan internet di tempat kerja

Internet merupakan medium Teknologi Maklumat dan Komunikasi (ICT) yang paling pesat berkembang sejak ia diperkenalkan pada tahun 1974.Dalam tempoh 22 tahun sahaja Internet telah menjangkau sempadan geografi dan mewujudkan dunia maya yang kaya dengan pelbagai maklumat.Penggunaan Internet yang bebas tanpa kawalan dalam semua sektor pekerjaan bukan sahaja telah memberikan impak yang positif tetapi turut membawa bersama gejala negatif yang akhirnya menjadi beban kepada masyarakat di seluruh dunia.Ketagihan Internet merupakan masalah baru yang mula menular daripada masalah inidividu kepada masalah organisasi.Fenomena ini telah menyebabkan kemerosotan produktiviti dan keuntungan kepada organisasi di seluruh dunia.Kajian ini meneroka permasalahan ketagihan Internet di tempat kerja dengan objektif untuk mengenalpasti simptom-simptom yang wujud dalam kalangan pekerja di sektor awam.Sejumlah 300 responden yang berkhidmat dalam bidang akademik dan pentadbiran di Universiti Utara Malaysia telah dikemukakan borang soalselidik mengenai tahap ketagihan Internet mereka di tempat kerja.Sampel kajian ini diperolehi menggunakan kaedah persampelan rawak bersistematik.Ujian statistik deskriptif digunakan untuk memerihalkan bilangan dan peratusan ciri-ciri demografi dan penggunaan Internet yang berkaitan dengan tahap ketagihan Internet.Ujian Khi-Kuasa Dua dan Ujian-t juga digunakan untuk mengenalpasti perkaitan dan perbezaan di antara tahap ketagihan Internet dengan ciri-ciri demografi dan penggunaan Internet responden.Hasil kajian mendapati bahawa tahap ketagihan Internet dalam kalangan kakitangan Universiti Utara Malaysia kini berada pada tahap rendah.Walaupun begitu terdapat tanda-tanda tahap ketagihan ini semakin meningkat. Majoriti golongan yang menunjukkan peningkatan ketagihan Internet adalah lelaki yang belum berkahwin dengan purata umur 33 tahun dan berpengalaman menggunakan Internet kurang dari 6 tahun.Kakitangan yang terlibat dengan ketagihan Internet kebanyakannya adalah kakitangan akademik dan kumpulan sokongan pentadbiran yang mempunyai rutin kerja yang melibatkan penggunaan komputer serta menjadikan World Wide Web sebagai aplikasi utama mereka.Kebanyakan kakitangan ini menggunakan Internet untuk berkomunikasi, mengisi masa bosan, melepaskan tekanan kerja dan mendengar muzik.Beberapa masalah yang sering dihadapi akibat penggunaan Internet yang terlalu lama ialah keletihan, kesakitan pada anggota badan, hilang minat untuk melakukan aktiviti luar, hilang tumpuan kerja dan mempunyai masalah dengan pihak atasan mereka.Kajian ini jelas menunjukkan bahawa gejala ketagihan Internet akan menjadi masalah besar dalam organisasi yang memerlukan perhatian serius semua pihak.Gejala ini jika tidak dibendung akan meningkatkan jumlah kakitangan yang menghidapi masalah psikologi yang akhirnya akan menyebabkan kerosakan kepada organisasi sendiri

Development of System Rice Intensification (SRI) paddy transplanter

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) practices have been developed in order to increase the production and quality of rice. Based on SRI practices the rice seedlings are transplanted at the young ages, 15 days old with just 2 leaves and carefully planting of just one seedling per hill and space the hills optimally widely in a square pattern of 25×25 cm for better usage of water, sunlight, minerals, space, nutrient, weeding and pest management within shallow depth (1-2 cm) in the moist soil condition. The existing method of mechanical transplanting of paddy which planted between 5 and 8 seedlings per stand is claimed to be inefficient to produce higher yield. From the survey that was carried out, most farmers are looking forward to single-planting translators as it is impossible to do it manually. Modifications have to be carried out on the planting claw (kuku kambing) so that it will only catch one seedling at a time, redesign the seedling tray to allow the SRI transplanter to catch one seedling at a time and determine the best soil condition suitable for the SRI practices. No doubt that the new develop transplanter for SRI will be the future machines for the farmers in Malaysia. Evidence have shown that the SRI practices in paddy cultivation has resulted in the increase in yield as well as superior quality paddy because of its shorter crop cycle, less need for seeds and fertilizer, less chaffy grain because of higher percentage grain filling, little or no lodging from wind or rain and higher head rice recovery rate, so more milled rice from a given amount of paddy and reduced labour demand while boosting productivity. The most important factors that influence the performance are soil moisture content, system of raising seedlings in nursery, degree of land labelling and finally the size of planting claw

A comprehensive comparison between wave propagation and heat distribution via analytical solutions and computer simulations

Wave propagation and heat distribution are both governed by second order linear constant coefficient partial differential equations, however their solutions yields very different properties. This study presents a comprehensive comparison between hyperbolic wave equation and parabolic heat equation. Issues such as conservation of wave profile versus averaging, transporting information, finite versus infinite speed propagation, time reversibility versus irreversibility and propagation of singularities versus instantaneous smoothing have been addressed and followed by examples and graphical evidences from computer simulations to support the arguments

Exploring GPS Data for Operational Analysis of Farm Machinery.

Global Positioning System (GPS) has made a great evolution in different aspects of modern agriculturalsectors. Today, a growing number of crop producers are using GPS and other modern electronic and computer equipments to practice Site Specific Management (SSM) and precision agriculture. This technology has the potentialin agricultural mechanization by providing farmers with a sophisticated tool to measure yield on much smaller scales as well as precisely determination and automatic storing of variables such as field time, working area,machine travel distance and speed, fuel consumption and yield information. This study focuses on how to interpretand process raw GPS data for operational analysis of farm machinery. Exact determinations of field activities usingGPS data along with accurate measurements and records of yield provide an integrated tool to calculate field efficiency and field machine index which in turn increases machine productivity and labor saving. The results canalso provide graphical tools for visualizing machine operator’s performance as well as making decision on field and machine size and selection

A review of Greenhouse Climate Control and Automation Systems in Tropical Regions.

Design and development of automation system for a tropical greenhouse involves different phases, including studying of environmental factors and crop responses, control algorithm, instrumentation and software/hardware interface. In contrast to cold arid climates, a tropical greenhouse is not to provide a warm and humid environment for crop, but to create an ideal condition in which plants can be protected against heavy rainfalls, direct sun radiation, disease, insects and birds. High relative humidity and ambient temperature climate in a tropical greenhouse creates a complicated dynamic system that is influenced by changes of external conditions, making it a challenging environmental control task. This paper reviews and addresses issues involved in the design procedure of automation control system in tropical greenhouses