Applying Data Envelopment Analysis To Evaluate The Efficiency Of Fishermen Associations In Malaysia

The fishermen association (FA) in Malaysia has a dual character, as it is both an enterprise and also an association. Hence the business and social performances have to be closely linked. The organization has to perform efficiently to sustain its existence in business and to function as a social organization to its members. With both aspects (economic and social) evaluated equally, it could be categorized as a good or poor performer society. Currently, financial ratios are used to measure the overall financial soundness of the association and the quality of its management. However, due to the association’s dual nature (as it is both an enterprise and also an association) and its multipurpose activities, the overall performance evaluation is often a complicated process. As an alternative form of analysis of the many analytical tools that have been in existence, this study introduces the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method, a non-parametric method to evaluating the performance of the association. Applying DEA to the panel data of 68 FAs from 1994 to 2001, produces estimates of efficiency (the distance of inefficient FAs from the frontier) and the separation of technical efficiency from scale efficiency. Then the measurement of technical progress (the shifting of the best practice over time) allows Malmquist indices of total factor productivity (TFP) to be constructed from the efficiency and technical change measures without recourse to prices. The results are presented as chained indices, so that the rates and causes of TFP growth can be analysed. The Malmquist index is ideal for investigating this problem because it decomposes total factor productivity into technical progress, technical efficiency and scale efficiency measures. Results from this empirical study have identified five “best-practice” FAs, which are located in three different “regions” in Malaysia. The derivation of the Malmquist productivity indices indicated a productivity growth in the socio-economic dimension of 1.033. The economic dimension efficiency showed a productivity growth with a TFP change of 1.015. In contrast, the social performance dimension was marked by a productivity regress with the TFP change score of 0.889. The productivity growth in the socio-economic and economic dimensions had been driven by positive technical change. With respect to the social dimension, the principal cause for the productivity regress was the efficiency change. Overall, the results showed that the FAs needed to improve in their efficiency to catch up with the best-practice frontier as much as by 3.9% in economic performance, 9% in social performance and 3.5% in socio-economic performance. Results indicated that the efficiencies in the economic and social dimensions were determined neither by the length of time in operation and geographical location of the association nor by the amount of grant or subsidy allocated by the government. In conclusion, for the FAs to be efficient with their dual-purpose objective, they need to achieve their optimum productivity in business and provide social benefits for their members, at the same time conforming to the values and practices of cooperative organization

Muslim marriage, divorce and custody of children in the state of Perak / Jamilah Mohd Din

The main purpose of this project paper will deal with discussion on marriage, divorce, custody of infant and matrimonial relief available to Muslim women. The law governing the Muslim marriage, divorce and custody of children in Perak which has been validatedly by constitution (Amendment) in September 1984, coupled with subsidiary legislation that is "Undang-undang Nikah Cerai Rujuk 11/1 965 which laid down the various rules and procedures of marriage and divorce. In Perak, unlike other states, it consists 16 district altogether which are subjected under the same Enactment. The districts ares- 1. Ipoh 2. Batu Gajah 3. Parit 4. Kampung Gajah 5. Teluk Intan 6. Lumut 7. Tapah 8. Slim River 9. Ku al a Kangsar 10. Taiping 11. Bagan Sera

Automatic generation of content security policy to mitigate cross site scripting

Content Security Policy (CSP) is powerful client-side security layer that helps in mitigating and detecting wide ranges of web attacks including cross-site scripting (XSS). However, utilizing CSP by site administrators is a fallible process and may require significant changes in web application code. In this paper, we propose an approach to help site administers to overcome these limitations in order to utilize the full benefits of CSP mechanism which leads to more immune sites from XSS. The algorithm is implemented as a plugin. It does not interfere with the web application original code. The plugin can be 'installed' on any other web application with minimum efforts. The algorithm can be implemented as part of Web Server layer, not as part of the business logic layer. It can be extended to support generating CSP for contents that are modified by JavaScript after loading. Current approach inspects the static contents of URLs

A systematic literature review of green software development in collaborative knowledge management environment

Background: Main asset in software industry is knowledge of employees who work in software development. Knowledge is main asset to succeed in green sustainable development. There is no research about to implement techniques of Knowledge Management (KM) in order to help in managing knowledge of Green Software Development (GSD). This is the research gap. Aims: This paper assesses literature on GSD in regards to the evolution of green computing, and discusses about how KM comes in to assist in managing the knowledge of GSD. Method: This study reviews current status of GSD by using tertiary study to review articles. A standard systematic literature review method is carried out to employ a manual search. Focus domains, knowledge areas and measurements of GSD will be identified so that can distill a common understanding of the state of the art GSD. Then, discussion about how KM comes in to assist CoP in managing their knowledge of GSD will be carried out in detailed. Results: 37 articles are chosen as primary studies. Among all focus domains, GSD life cycle gains highest interest. Knowledge area of energy efficiency receives the highest attention. Measurement for power consumption obtains the greatest priority to measure “greenness” of software developed. Conclusion: Focuses covered by GSD are limited. Researchers are encouraged to study about diverse areas of GSD. Our future work is to develop model of GSD which involving KM process to ensure members of CoP in software environment able to manage their knowledge and sustain best practices of GSD for the future

Object-oriented design process model

Design is a first step in the development phase for any engineered product or system. It is defined as the process and strategies used to manage complexity. Software design process is an iterative process whereby the requirements are transformed into a “blueprint” for constructing the software. A design model is developed based on the combination of intuition and judgment, a set of principles and heuristics, and a process of iteration that leads to final design specifications. Without a proper design, a software system may fail to deliver its intended service and often will lead to some consuming maintenance activities. Therefore it is necessary for software developers to do the design process thoroughly before they start implementing the system. Object-oriented design is not an easy task. It is even difficult for a novice designer or for an experienced designer who wants to shift to object-oriented approach. Throughout literature, there are varying schools of thought on what constitutes object-oriented design. What is the process involved in this phase and what are components or structures? This paper presents four popular object-oriented design methods, and then a process model of object-oriented design for novice designer is proposed. The model consists of a process and four components. The process model is part of the model of a guidance system to assist novice designers in designing object-oriented systems

Risk assessment tool for software project in Malaysian public sector

Software products and services are designed and developed in software project that utilize large amount of resources. Risk assessment is an essential activity for software projects to achieve project’s objectives. Quality of risk assessment process could affect the quality of the delivered project or worst it will lead to a project failure. In Malaysian public sector, Information Communication and Technology (ICT) has been rapidly utilized as an enabler to modernize service delivery via multiple electronic channels. This study aims to identify the relevant criteria (variables) in risk assessment and to design and implement a risk assessment tool, specifically tailored to Malaysian Public Sector Software Project. The study were performed through exploratory research methodology focuses on qualitative risk assessment in risk management capacity. The focus group was employed to imply the public sector risk assessment variables for software project. An interview session and discussion with focus group were conducted to gather the requirements in order to achieve our aims. The outcome of this risk assessment tool is to produce risk report table consist of risk probability, risk impact and risk score. The risk assessment tool proposed is believe to be useful in speeding up the process and also to assist the decision making process in risk management area. As for future researches, we are planning to further our study on the complete process of risk management for software project in Malaysia public sector. Investigation of risk assessment should take the complete process of risk management into consideration of performing good risk management tool

Framework for inspection-based: checking the effectiveness and efficiency in PHP source code

Code inspection process is one of the software inspection processes that is used to find faults, check, increase, and maintain the quality of the software. Typically, the source code inspection process will be conducted in order to find sources code-related issues such as Logical Errors, and Structured Query Language (SQL) Injections. Currently, source code inspection process is being done manually by the developer which leads to taking a long time to find faults as well as time-delay. Based on the literature reviews that had been done, many researchers have done a lot of work in this domain, but none of them have developed prototype containing Logical Errors and SQL Injections for Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) structure source code in one prototype. Therefore, this research proposed a framework for identifying Logical Errors and SQL Injections. A prototype is developed to proof the concept of the framework. The proposed framework is evaluated using the prototype in terms of effectiveness and efficiency by comparing the manual code inspection and the prototype-based code inspection. The result shows the prototype-based is more effective and efficient compared to current practice (manual)

Framework for Inspection-Based: Checking the Effectiveness and Efficiency in PHP Source Code

Code inspection process is one of the software inspection processes that is used to find faults, check, increase, and maintain the quality of the software. Typically, the source code inspection process will be conducted in order to find sources code-related issues such as Logical Errors, and Structured Query Language (SQL) Injections. Currently, source code inspection process is being done manually by the developer which leads to taking a long time to find faults as well as time-delay. Based on the literature reviews that had been done, many researchers have done a lot of work in this domain, but none of them have developed prototype containing Logical Errors and SQL Injections for Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) structure source code in one prototype. Therefore, this research proposed a framework for identifying Logical Errors and SQL Injections. A prototype is developed to proof the concept of the framework. The proposed framework is evaluated using the prototype in terms of effectiveness and efficiency by comparing the manual code inspection and the prototype-based code inspection. The result shows the prototype-based is more effective and efficient compared to current practice (manual)

The Development and Evaluation of Experience-Based Factory Model for Software Development Process

Knowledge, and experiences in software development have been accumulated over time throughout the project lifecycle. Previous studies have shown that the management of knowledge and experiences in software development has always been an issue. Therefore, the knowledge transfer and information flow are inefficient, misinterpretation, and inconsistencies always occur between individuals or teams, and the organization fails to learn from past projects. It is understood that efficient knowledge and experience management for software development organizations is crucial for the purpose of sharing and future reuse. This paper discusses the prototype development for a proposed model, which is based on the experience factory approach, to manage knowledge and experiences for the software development process. Discussions include the system functionalities and design, infrastructure requirements, and implementation approach. The efficiency and effectiveness of the prototype are evaluated as survey research based on Jennex & Olfman knowledge management success model. Rasch analysis is used for data reliability and validity. Results show positive feedback on the model’s efficiency and effectiveness. Additionally, as agreed by most respondents, the top three of the model contributions are: to encourage learning organization, to prevent knowledge loss and to aid in decision making

Validation of object-oriented software GA metric selection model using domain experts

This study presents validation of object-oriented model to predict its maintainability. The study used metric threshold in its encoding strategy in the implementation of GA Model before being compared with classical model. This empirical validation was then compared with real maintainability data from experts using similar procedures. To understand the overall effect of particular software, linear discriminant analysis which is machine learning statistical method was utilised to evaluate the performance of the metrics. The results pointed out that there is significant relationship when expert’s opinions were used. Experts also indicated the role of inheritance metrics in predicting maintainability of object-oriented software which also highlighted the needs for further empirical investigation on the production of more metrics threshold that give researchers and practitioners an opportunity to work on more metrics