A retrospective view on the promise on machine translation for Bahasa Melayu-English

Research and development activities for machine translation systems from English language to others are more progressive than vice versa. It has been more than 30 years since the machine translation was introduced and yet a Malay language or Bahasa Melayu (BM) to English machine translation engine is not available. Consequently, many translation systems have been developed for the world's top 10 languages in terms of native speakers, but none for BM, although the language is used by more than 200 million speakers around the world. This paper attempts to seek possible reasons as why such situation occurs. A summative overview to show progress, challenges as well as future works on MT is presented. Issues faced by researchers and system developers in modeling and developing a machine translation engine are also discussed. The study of the previous translation systems (from other languages to English) reveals that the accuracy level can be achieved up to 85 %. The figure suggests that the translation system is not reliable if it is to be utilized in a serious translation activity. The most prominent difficulties are the complexity of grammar rules and ambiguity problems of the source language. Thus, we hypothesize that the inclusion of ‘semantic’ property in the translation rules may produce a better quality BM-English MT engine

Consumer-behavioural intention towards the consumption of functional food in Malaysia: their profiles and behaviours

Unhealthy eating behaviour has been linked to the risks of many chronic diseases all around theworld.Functional foods and its association with health benefits and reducing the risk of diseases open a promising avenue for consumers to pursue a healthier life as well as extending their life expectancy.This provides a great market opportunity for functional foods to be developed. Consequently, it has generated considerable consumer interest in functional food consumption. This study describes the profiles and behaviours of the consumers who are willing to consume functional foods in Malaysia. By using mall intercept surveys, data were collected from consumers shopping at hypermarkets in Malaysia. From the analysis undertaken, it was found that the level of consumer-behavioural intention to consume functional food is encouraging. The results indicated that behavioural intention towards functional food tends to be different across gender, age and marital status.However this study found that the extent of consumer-behavioural intention does not vary by ethnicity, religion, income and education. Future study was also proposed

The Relationship Between Attitude Dimension, Social Influence and Self-Efficacy on Behavioural Intention to Consume Functional Food among Malaysian

This study is intended to minimize the gap in the literature and develop more understanding concerning the issue of unhealthy consumption behaviour among Malaysians which indeed leads to the prevalence of obesity and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).Many studies had scientifically proven that functional foods, with fortified nutritional values could help prevent the risks of NCDs and improve overall health.Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the relationship between antecedent factors of attitude dimensions (i.e., reward, necessity, confidence and safety), social influence and self-efficacy on behavioural intention to consume functional foods among Malaysians.A survey was conducted with a sample of 452 respondents by using the self-administered questionnaire.The results revealed that only reward, self-efficacy and necessity factors significantly influence consumer-behavioural intention to consume functional foods. On the other hand, confidence, safety and social influence factors have no significant bearing on consumer-behavioural intention. The results from this study can shed further light on functional foods consumption behaviour and will be valuable for health food industry marketers in formulating effective marketing communication strategies to facilitate favourable attitudinal change towards healthy foods

Light absorption enhancement using Graphene Quantum Dots and the effect of N-719 dye loading on the photoelectrode of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC)

Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) is used to enhance light absorption in the visible region of DSSC by sensitising method. The used of GQDs in photoelectode may effect the N-719 dye loading on photoelectrode and the study is done by ultraviolet spectroscopy (Uv-Vis). Initially, the TiO2 photoelectrode films is sensitised in ∼5 nm GQDs to overcome TiO2 photoelectrode drawback such as random electron transport and short-circuit current. Then, photoelectrode films is sensitised in N-719 dye to excite the electrons in TiO2 film. PG 7.5 adsorbed only 0.103 x 10-7 mol cm-2 N719 dye while PT at 0.527 x 10-7 mol cm-2. The pristine TiO2 photoelectrode (PT) adsorbed more than 80.4% of N-719 dye compared to PG 7.5 photoelectrode and other TiO2-GQDs photoeletrodes (PG 2.5, PG 5.0 and PG 10). As a result, the used of GQDs for TiO2 photoelectrode is reduced the intake of expensive N-719 dye for DSSCs. This happened because some of the functional groups in the GQDs solution such as hydroxyl and carboxyl groups are biocompatible with TiO2 which allows more adsorption sites of GQDs onto TiO2 surface. Thus, after GQDs molecules were occupied on the TiO2 surface, not many sites were available for N719 dye molecule. Therefore, it might reduce the N719-dye intake in the DSSC device, which can reduce the fabrication cost of DSSC and give good impact on environment