Micropropagation and acclimatization of Musa Acuminata cv. Mas and Raja Udang / Syed Abdullah Syed Mustaffa

Tissue culture method is the best method to overcome the shortage of planting material. The plantlets produced by tissue culture method are identical to the parent plant. This research was aimed to produce high quality planting materials of Musa Acuminata cv. Mas and Raja Udang. It was also intended to compare the regeneration efficiency of the two cultivars studied. Murashige and Skoog media added with BAP and NAA hormones were prepared and used for micropropagation of the bananas. The banana suckers were collected and surface-sterilized with ethanol and sodium hypochlorite solution. Then, the explants were cultured on MS medium. The explants were cultured under different growth conditions (light or dark conditions) to investigate the effect of light on the regeneration efficiency of the explants. Evaluation was performed to compare the shoot regeneration efficiency of Musa acuminata cv. Mas and Raja Udang in tissue culture. The plantlets were transferred to the potting mix consisting of topsoil, sand and farm yard manure in the ratio of 1:1:1. Acclimatization of plantlets was carried out before field planting purpose

Hubungan antara amalan kepimpinan distributif dan amalan komuniti pembelajaran profesional dalam kalangan pemimpin Sekolah di Negeri Johor

Kepimpinan distributif adalah teori kepimpinan yang popular terutamanya dalam kalangan pemimpin sekolah. Kajian ini bertujuan mengenal pasti hubungan antara amalan kepimpinan distributif dan amalan komuniti pembelajaran professional dalam kalangan pemimpin sekolah menengah di negeri Johor. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitatif dengan reka bentuk korelasi dan disokong oleh pendekatan kualitatif. Bagi fasa kuantitatif, seramai 358 orang pemimpin sekolah dipilih menggunakan persampelan rawak berkelompok daripada sekolah menengah di negeri Johor. Negeri Johor dipilih kerana jumlah kajian berkaitan amalan kepimpinan distributif yang melibatkan semua pemimpin sekolah adalah terhad. Data dikumpul menggunakan dua instrumen soal selidik iaitu “Perception of Distributed Leadership Practices” oleh Hairon dan Goh (2015) dan “Professional Learning Communities Assessment – Revised” oleh Olivier et al. (2010) yang telah diadaptasi daripada bahasa Inggeris ke dalam Bahasa Melayu. Data dianalisis menggunakan ujian korelasi, ujian�T dan ujian regresi berganda menggunakan perisian SPSS Statistik Versi 25. Bagi fasa kualitatif, lapan orang pemimpin sekolah dipilih dalam kalangan pemimpin sekolah menengah di negeri Johor menggunakan kaedah pemilihan peserta bertujuan. Data dikumpul melalui temubual separa berstruktur dan analisis dokumen, seterusnya dianalisis menggunakan perisian NVivo versi 12. Hasil ujian korelasi menunjukkan, terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara amalan kepimpinan distributif dan amalan komuniti pembelajaran professional. Hasil ujian-T menunjukkan terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan antara kepimpinan distributif pemimpin sekolah dari segi jantina dan lokasi sekolah. Hasil ujian regresi berganda menunjukkan terdapat pengaruh yang signifikan di antara setiap amalan komuniti pembelajaran professional terhadap amalan kepimpinan distributif. Hasil temubual dan analisis dokumen mendapati pemimpin sekolah menengah di negeri Johor mengamalkan budaya sekolah selain penurunan kuasa terhad, membangunkan kepimpinan, membuat keputusan bersama dan penglibatan secara kolektif di dalam komuniti pembelajaran professional

Agenda setting: probing the issues during the 13th general election

This study discusses the development of agenda setting and its application in political communication especially in general elections in Malaysia. The vast majority of studies on Agenda Setting have found widespread support for a media influence on issue salience despite studies used different methodologies and issues. The theory postulates that people were simply led to think about the agenda as set by the media. The salience of the media agenda would then be reflected as the people agenda, measured through rank correlation. With the emergence of technologies, questions arise among scholars about whether the theory on Agenda Setting would remain viable in later years and whether people would continue to obtain their news from a given number of media outlets, given the range of new media channels being made available over the years. The discussion of this study contributes to a better understanding of agenda setting in current Malaysian media landscape

Solubility in supercritical carbon dioxide

The different techniques used for the determination of the solubility of compounds in supercritical carbon dioxide are described. A comparative study is made of the methods used in the measurement of the concentration of benzoic acid and caffeine in supercritical carbon dioxide. The difference in measurement techniques did not have much effect on the solubility data at lower pressures. However, at higher pressures, the solubility data obtained by different techniques began to deviate from each other. Further, the method used by different researchers in generating the solubility data in supercritical carbon dioxide is also discussed. A number of data sheets have been prepared from these articles containing important information like the solubility, pressure range, temperature range, error in measurement of solubility. and also a brief explanation of the measurement technique. These data sheets form part of an IUPAC-NIST solubility data series project

Zero Trust Architecture

Cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and IT organizations need to continue to modernize their approaches to cybersecurity in light of today\u27s dynamic cyber threat environment. Cybersecurity professionals must adopt a zero-trust security model and the mindset needed to engineer and operate a system specifically designed to operate according to zero trust principles in order to ensure the security of sensitive data, systems, and services as enterprise networks become increasingly dispersed and complex

Structural determinants of stability to proteolysis, processing and impact on allergenic potential of non-specific lipid transfer proteins

Lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are a class of low molecular weight hydrophobic conserved proteins comprising four intramolecular disulphide bonds making the structure very resistant to proteolysis and harsh food processing conditions. These proteins are identified as strong allergens sensitizing through the gut and share epitopes with LTPs from closely related species. Peach LTP, Pru p 3 is the primary sensitizer in the Mediterranean area being the most frequent food allergen. Wheat LTP, Tri a 14 is a relatively weak allergen with a very low prevalence. The study here compares the structural properties of these proteins and their resistance to various digestive and processing processes. Ligand binding experiments showed that Pru p 3 binds to ligands more strongly than Tri a 14. The gastroduodenal digestion of these LTPs revealed that both are stable to gastric digestion and while Pru p 3 is susceptible to duodenal digestion, Tri a 14 digestion is negligible. Ligand binding did not affect the digestibility of Pru p 3 but improved the duodenal digestibility of Tri a 14. The IgE binding studies using sera from peach allergic individuals confirmed that both Pru p 3 and its digestion fragments in the presence and absence of ligand were IgE reactive. Model processing conditions were employed to treat these LTPs. It was found that heat treatment destroys the secondary structure of Pru p 3 at 121°C and slightly affects that of Tri a 14. Heat treatment also increased the susceptibility of Pru p 3 to gastric digestion while Tri a 14 was less affected. The IgE binding studies showed that heat treatment of Pru p 3 appeared to reduce its IgE recognition while its digestion fragments lost all of their IgE reactivity. To investigate the effect of the food matrix on the digestibility of these LTPs, peach peel containing Pru p 3 and wheat flour containing Tri a 14 were digested under simulated conditions. It was found that they were resistant to proteolysis in their native matrices. Effect of heat treatment to the food matrix again confirmed that both of these proteins were more stable to heat in the matrix and were less digestible. In conclusion, this study shows that there are factors in food matrices which enhance structural stability of LTPs to both processing and digestion. Thus factors such as the effect of food matrix and effect of processing should be taken into account in assessing the allergenic risk posed by foods and not simply rely on data from purified proteins

Vermeer's skopos theory and its application to the Arabic translation of Miller's Death of a Salesman

The present study aimed at shedding some light on Vermeer's (1989) Skopos theory in translation as suggested by Vermeer along with the application of this theory to an English literary text taken from Miller's Death of A Salesman (1947) and its Arabic translation done by a Syrian Arab translator called Omar Jabak. Besides, the article will try to examine the weaknesses of Skopos theory in terms of its applicability to literary texts in particular. The researchers adopted the analytical descriptive approach in this small-scale qualitative study to prove the inapplicability of the Skopos theory principles to the above-mentioned English play and its Arabic translation. The research data and findings revealed that Vermeer's Skopos theory had somehow little applicability to translated literary works because literature and its translation, in general, and drama, in particular, have meaningful or 'skopos' in people's social, economic and political lives

Syntactic translation strategies for retaining parallelism in the Arabic translation of Moby Dick

The present study examines strategies for translating parallelism and factors in retaining parallelism in the Arabic translation of the novel of “Moby Dick”. Analysis is conducted on two sets of data taken from the English novel “Moby Dick” written by Melville in 1851 and its Arabic translation ‘Mūbī Dīk’ by ʻAbbās (1980). This qualitative research is guided by Chesterman’s (1997) syntactic strategy model, and contrastive analysis (CA) is also performed. The contrastive analysis is carried out using a coding procedure based on themes and taxonomies in the acquired data constructed by the researchers. The result shows that, based on Chesterman’s (1997) model, the translator of the above-mentioned novel employed three strategies, namely, literal translation, clause structure change and transposition to maintain parallelism in the Arabic translation of the English novel

The early days of public relations in British Malaya: winning the hearts and minds of the Empire

This article traces the early form of public information services during the colonial period to provide new insights into the historical development of Malaysia’s public relations. The first formal information agency created in 1910 was based in London to promote the early practices of public relations for British Malaya and its interests in Britain. British consolidation during the years of economic boom and depression, until the achievement of Malaysian Independence, was aided by the early information services. The article makes an alternative argument about the beginnings of Malaysian public relations based on colonial economic and political interest as against other previously held view

Barisan Nasional's GE14 campaign materials: a reversed third-person effect

The third-person effect theory postulates that respondents would deny media’s direct effect on themselves but would perceive the same media as having a greater effect on others. A “reverse” third-person effect happens when the intended influence is perceived to be desirable or intelligent on oneself. This perception is sometimes referred to as the “first-person” effect claiming that people perceive greater communication influence on themselves than on others. The third-person effect has been studied on cross sections of populations but it is not clear what the effects would be if examined on a longitudinal basis. Applying this paradigm to the Malaysian voter scenario in the 2013 general elections, Idid and Souket (2014) studied the influence of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) political campaign literature on BN voters under two categories- “self” which included themselves, their family, and like party supporters and “others” that included opposition supporters and undecided voters. The study found that BN supporters displayed a positive confidence on the influence of BN’s campaign materials on self (88%) and on others (77%). Hence, a reversed thirdperson effect, that is, a first-person effect was observed for the perceived level of influence of BN’s political communication materials on BN voters. This finding was attributed to the confidence and positive sentiment of BN voters towards their own party communication materials, finding the materials desirable and favourable. The present study investigated the effect of BN’s political campaign literature on BN voters and opposition voters in the recent 2018 general election. The findings of Idid and Souket (2014) study on the 2013 election were then compared to the current study. The study posits that voter confidence is an important factor in predicting voter influence and perceived effect on others that may result in a third-person effect or a reversed third-person effect given two different contextual situations. This longitudinal study addresses the issue of the third person effect during the periods when BN was strong (2013) and when it lost its dominant position in Malaysian politics (2018)