The Application of DNA Molecular Marker Techniques in Hevea Brasiliensis

DNA was extracted from several Hevea sources; namely, various Hevea species, several cultivars from within the Hevea brasiliensis species such as clones and in vitro cultured H. brasiliensis. Four DNA molecular marker techniques were used to analyze the DNA. These techniques included a hybridization-based marker technique called restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and three polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based techniques viz. random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), DNA amplified fingerprinting (DAF) and sequence-tagged microsatellite sites (STMS). In the RFLP study, a wheat ribosomal DNA, pTa71 (rDNA) probe was able to detect a reduction in rDNA loci number in DNA from in vitro cultured plants compared to DNA from control plants. Hybridization with M13 DNA fragments revealed interand intraspecific variations among the DNA samples. Neither of thesehybridization probes could detect somac1onal variation within a sample of in vitro cultured plants. On the other hand, RAPD and DAF were able to detect somaclonal variation within the in vitro cultured plants. The polymorphic patterns produced by RAPD could be neither correlated with any particular morphological trait nor the source of calli i.e. anther or ovule. Meanwhile, DAF proved to be more sensitive as it was able to detect a high degree of variation in the DNA extracted from anther derived calli. STMS could not detect any variation nor insertion/deletion mutation at the HMGR-l gene within the in vitro culture DNA. RAPD and DAF molecular markers were found to be dominant while RFLP and STMS markers were co-dominant in all of the H brasiliensis crosses tested in this study. No change in the methylation sites for both in vitro culture and control plants were detected when the DNAs were digested with both isoschizomeric restriction enzymes Hpall and MspI. A micro satellite enriched library was constructed and was found to be enriched with (GA)n repeats (39%). Hybridization with one of these clones revealed inter- and intraspecific variations with DpnII -restricted DNAs. This clone was subsequently sequenced and found to be an imperfect repeat

Morfologi varian Minangkabau mengungkap jati diri orang Minangkabau perantauan

Kajian ini adalah untuk mendeskripsikan morfologi varian Minangkabau yang meliputi data kajian di Semenanjung Malaysia. Varian Minangkabau (VM) yang digunakan dalam kajian ini melibatkan kawasan di negeri Selangor (Hulu Langat, Batang Kali dan Beranang), Negeri Sembilan (Jelebu dan Kuala Pilah) dan Pahang (Bentong). Kajian dijalankan dengan mendapatkan data perkataan melalui temubual dengan informan. Penulis membuat temubual secara bersemuka dengan merakam kisah dan cerita daripada informan bagi memperoleh data varian Minangkabau. Kajian awal mendapati walaupun informan ini telah berpindah dari tanah asal di Sumatera dan membina kehidupan baharu di perantauan, leksikal dan perkataan yang terungkap masih jelas varian Minangkabau dalam rakaman perbualan mereka. Hasil dapatan menunjukkan morfologi varian Minangkabau ini ada banyak persamaan dengan bahasa Melayu seperti morfologi imbuhan ‘ba’ dalam VM menjadi ‘ber’ dalam BM (bahasa Melayu), misalnya dalam perkataan bacampua menjadi bercampur

Estimation of occupational accident and accident prevention cost in wood based related industries.

The objective of the study is to estimate occupational accident cost in manufacturing industries, especially in wood based related industries. The study attempts to identify, define, and classify the cost components of occupational accident related cost and to catalogue the various economic approaches used to estimate the entire costs of occupational accident and to propose the risk prevention plan. The study uses local specific approach by reviewing company historical records on occupational accident as reported in JKKP 6, JKKP 8, JKKP 9 and company internal investigation reports. For each occupational accident, the site safety officer in charge, human resource and account employee, supervisor, victim, related co-workers and relatives were interviewed in order to estimate direct costs, indirect costs, prevention costs and others personal cost related to the accident. Other related information such as personal data of the victim, type of injuries, location of injuries and cause of injuries were recorded. A total of 24 occupational accidents data for the past five years were analyzed in the cost of accident summary report to determine the overall ratio of direct to indirect cost and ratio of total cost of accident to prevention cost. Further analysis was carried out to determine the most significant cost of accident related to demographic profiles for Malaysian and Non Malaysian employees. Result obtained from the analysis has been integrated into existing Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment and Risk Control (HIRARC) format during the risk assessment in the selected manufacturing process within the company. The estimated potential cost of accident and cost of prevention was added to the existing report for HIRARC. In conclusion, this study has determined the ratio of direct to indirect cost of occupational accident and to propose the risk prevention plan with additional information on cost of accident and cost of prevention

Web Access Analyser for Distance Education Environment

Distance Education implementation has been greatly influenced by the changing of the current sophisticated technologies. Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) have enabled the rapid growth of distance education technology. The Internet is a huge database that connects most of the information source centers worldwide. This technology is equipped with the existence of WWW that ease accesses to the sources. With these technologies, distance education can be implemented properly. An approach been developed is the implementation of distance education through WWW. Learning modules are kept in a Web server while the student can access the modules from scattered terminals linked to the server via the network. It is a method of module delivery to the students that which are easier and faster. Even though distance education requires individual capability to manage the time and learning effort, the educators still have the responsibilities in evaluating their students' achievements. It is easier to evaluate on-campus students compared to distance learners. If the educators can evaluate on-campus students through their attendance and work performance, an appropriate approach to evaluate out-campus students' effort and commitment is necessary. There is a file that is specially created by a Web server which keeps and lists all access requests and transaction information made to the files kept within the server. This particular file is known as an "access_log" file. There has been a substantial effort to manipulate the file, for example, this study used "access_log" file to filter out information to produce students' distance module access statistics which is able to assist distance educators to evaluate distance students' commitment as well as to measure modules' design efficiency

EFFECT OF MUSIC ON ANAEROBIC EXERCISE PERFORMANCE

For years, mostly the effects of music on cardiorespiratory exercise performance have been studied, but a few studies have examined the effect of music on anaerobic exercise. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of listening to music and its rhythm on anaerobic exercise: on power output, heart rate and the concentration of blood lactate. 28 male subjects were required to visit the laboratory on 6 occasions, each separated by 48 hours. Firstly, each subject performed the Running-based Anaerobic Sprint Test (RAST) under 3 conditions on separate days: while listening to “slow rhythm music”, “fast rhythm music” or “no music”. 48 hours after the subjects completed RAST under 3 conditions, Wingate Anaerobic Power (WAN) tests were performed under 3 music conditions. The order of the 3 conditions (slow music, fast music and no music) was selected randomly to prevent an order effect. Results showed no significant differences between 3 conditions in anaerobic power assessments, heart rate or blood lactate (p>0.05). On the basis of these results it can be said that music cannot improve anaerobic performance. The type of music had no impact on power outputs during RAST and WAN exercise. As a conclusion, listening to music and its rhythm cannot enhance anaerobic performance and cannot change the physiological response to supramaximal exercise

Predicting Grades

To increase efficacy in traditional classroom courses as well as in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), automated systems supporting the instructor are needed. One important problem is to automatically detect students that are going to do poorly in a course early enough to be able to take remedial actions. Existing grade prediction systems focus on maximizing the accuracy of the prediction while overseeing the importance of issuing timely and personalized predictions. This paper proposes an algorithm that predicts the final grade of each student in a class. It issues a prediction for each student individually, when the expected accuracy of the prediction is sufficient. The algorithm learns online what is the optimal prediction and time to issue a prediction based on past history of students' performance in a course. We derive a confidence estimate for the prediction accuracy and demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on a dataset obtained based on the performance of approximately 700 UCLA undergraduate students who have taken an introductory digital signal processing over the past 7 years. We demonstrate that for 85% of the students we can predict with 76% accuracy whether they are going do well or poorly in the class after the 4th course week. Using data obtained from a pilot course, our methodology suggests that it is effective to perform early in-class assessments such as quizzes, which result in timely performance prediction for each student, thereby enabling timely interventions by the instructor (at the student or class level) when necessary.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figure

The effect of customer retention programs on re-patronage intention: a case of Muar Traders Hotel / Nurulain Atan

As market growth slows or as markets become more competitive and level of switching costs increases, firms are more likely to attempt to maintain their market share by focusing on retaining current customers. Customer retention has been advocated as an easier and more reliable source of superior performance. This research utilized a convenience methodology to improve customer retention, and the researcher has helped the firm identifying the factors that contribute to retain customer and initiate a variety of strategies to accomplish this objective. Four customer retention program tools that contribute to re-patronage intention of the customers that had been identify by researcher consists of privilege cards, greeting cards, charity works and free spa. The finding highlights the effectiveness of the retention program tools used by Muar Traders Hotel. The researcher also identified the causes that lead to the decrease of the firm customer retention rate and come out with few recommendations. By implementing the recommendations, the researcher optimism that it will help the firm to better upgrade its performance and any area that is not running well in their management for future use