Education service experience : from the aspects of students' satisfaction and loyalty

Penyelidikan ini mengkaji tentang pcrhubungan di antara kepuasan par:1 penuntut dan rasa taat setia mereka terhadap khidmat yang diberikan di dalam hidang pendidikan (tinggi). Secara khususnya kajian ini meneliti tentang aspek kognitif dan afektif penuntut dalam rasa puas hati mereka, di samping menentukan sama ada ia boleh menjurus ke arah membentuk kesetiaan terhadap institusi pendidikan tersebut (secara perkhabaran lisan yang positif, perilaku membuat rungutan, perilaku membuat pertukaran dan kesanggupan untuk membayar jumlah wang yang lebih). Dari 329 maklumbalas pelajar kampus utama Universiti Sains Malaysia yang diterima, didapati bahawa hubungan sebagaimana yang disebutkan di atas hanyalah diterima sebahagiannya sahaja. This research studies the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty within the higher education service. ~1ore specifically, it examines the cognitive and affective aspects of students· satisfaction, to see whether the satisfaction will lead to loyalty (in terms of positive word of mouth, complaining behaviour, switching behaviour, and the willingness to pay more). From the 329 responses obtained from students in the main campus of University Sains Malaysia, the study finds that the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty was only partially supported. For cognitive dimensions, "feedback and assessment" and "perceived benefits" of each course showed positive and significant relations to "positive word of mouth". But, "feedback and assessment" showed negative relations to "complaining behaviour". '·Physical environment", and "feedback and assessment" were found significant and having positive relations to the "willingness to pay more"

Cation Service Experience: From The Aspects Of Students’ Satisfaction And Loyalty.

Penyelidikan ini mengkaji tentang perhubungan di antara kepuasan para penuntut dan rasa taat setia mereka terhadap khidmat yang diberikan di dalam bidang pendidikan (tinggi). This research studies the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty within the higher education service

Education Service Experience: From The Aspects Of Students’ Satisfaction And Loyalty.

Penyelidikan ini mengkaji tentang perhubungan di antara kepuasan para penuntut dan rasa taat setia mereka terhadap khidmat yang diberikan di dalam bidang pendidikan (tinggi). This research studies the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty within the higher education service

Provide good service quality to satisfy students' needs and make them become loyal students

This research studies the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty within the higher education service. More specifically, it examines the cognitive and affective aspects of students satisfaction, to see whether the satisfaction will lead to loyalty. From the 329 responses obtained from students in the public university in Malaysia, the study finds that the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty was only partially supported. For cognitive dimensions, feedback and assessment and perceived benefits of each course showed positive and significant relations to positive word of mouth. But, feedback and assessment showed negative relations to complaining behaviour. Physical environment, and feedback and assessment were found significant and having positive relations to the willingness to pay more. Physical environment showed negative relation to switching behaviour. For the affective dimensions, negative emotions showed negative significant relations to positive word of mouth. The study has shown the relationship among the variables that contribute to satisfaction and loyalty. Higher educational institutions could consider these factors as indicators or pointers which would offer as an added advantage to providing standards of service quality to satisfy students needs and make them become loyal students

Non-repudiation in an agent-based e-commerce system

Abecos is an agent-based e-commerce system under development at the Nanyang Technological University. It aims to provide a software infrastructure for a large scale, distributed system whereby seller and buyer (software) agents engage in e-commerce activities on behalf of organizations and individuals. A key factor in making this system usable in practice is strict security controls. One aspect of security is the provision of non-repudiation services. As protocols for non-repudiation have focused on the singlemessage non-repudiation, its adaptation to afford non-repudiation in a communication session for two agents in Abecos is inefficient. In this work, we investigate and propose a protocol for enforcing non-repudiation in a session. We compare and show that it is more efficient than simple adaptations of existing protocols. Keywords: Electronic Commerce, Security, Non-Repudiation Protocol 1 Introduction Electronic commerce is an emerging paradigm of business on the fast g..

Tensile strength of gabion wires against simulated weathering and field conditions

Gabions can be applied in both civil and hydraulic engineering, it implies that gabions will be found in or on soil as retaining structures, along the streams and sea coast as erosion control structures. With such wide applications, the gabions must be built durable enough to withstand all possible site conditions that might weaken and damage the structure. However, the durability of the gabions relies greatly on the durability of the wire mesh as limited life of the wire basket is the major drawback of gabions [1]. To overcome, present coating technology which applies a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) guaranteed the durability of gabions [2

Provide good service quality to satisfy students' needs and make them become loyal students

This research studies the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty within the higher education service. Knowing student expectation is insufficient, it is important to reduce the gap between expectation and the service actually rendered by higher education institutions. Identify the gaps for improvement. More specifically; i) to examine the cognitive and affective aspects of students' satisfaction and ii) to investigate crucial antecedents of satisfaction that lead to loyalty. From the 329 responses obtained from students in the public university in Malaysia, study found that the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty was only partially supported. Perceived benefits of the course, feedback and assessment, physical environment and emotional factors all play an important role in influencing positive word of mouth, willingness to pay more and switching behavior. The study has shown relationship among variables that contribute to satisfaction and loyalty. Higher educational institutions could consider these factors as indicators or pointers which would offer an added advantage to providing standards of service quality to satisfy students' needs and make them become loyal students

AERONET Remotely Sensed Measurements and Retrievals of Biomass Burning Aerosol Optical Properties During the 2015 Indonesian Burning Season

An extreme biomass burning event occurred in Indonesia from September through October 2015 due to severe drought conditions, partially caused by a major El Niño event, thereby allowing for significant burning of peatland that had been previously drained. This event had the highest sustained aerosol optical depths (AODs) ever monitored by the global Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). The newly developed AERONET Version 3 algorithms retain high AOD at the longer wavelengths when associated with high Ångström exponents (AEs), which thereby allowed for measurements of AOD at 675 nm as high as approximately 7, the upper limit of Sun photometry. Measured AEs at the highest monitored AOD levels were subsequently utilized to estimate instantaneous values of AOD at 550 nm in the range of 11 to 13, well beyond the upper measurement limit. Additionally, retrievals of complex refractive indices, size distributions, and single scattering albedos (SSAs) were obtained at much higher AOD levels than possible from almucantar scans due to the ability to perform retrievals at smaller solar zenith angles with new hybrid sky radiance scans. For retrievals made at the highest AOD levels the fine‐mode volume median radii were ~0.25–0.30 micron, which are very large particles for biomass burning. Very high SSA values (~0.975 from 440 to 1,020 nm) are consistent with the domination by smoldering combustion of peat burning. Estimates of the percentage peat contribution to total biomass burning aerosol based on retrieved SSA and laboratory measured peat SSA were ~80–85%, in excellent agreement with independent estimates

Phenotypic and microRNA transcriptomic profiling of the MDA-MB-231 spheroid-enriched CSCs with comparison of MCF-7 microRNA profiling dataset

Breast cancer spheroids have been widely used as in vitro models of cancer stem cells (CSCs), yet little is known about their phenotypic characteristics and microRNAs (miRNAs) expression profiles. The objectives of this research were to evaluate the phenotypic characteristics of MDA-MB-231 spheroid-enriched cells for their CSCs properties and also to determine their miRNAs expression profile. Similar to our previously published MCF-7 spheroid, MDA-MB-231 spheroid also showed typical CSCs characteristics namely self-renewability, expression of putative CSCs-related surface markers and enhancement of drug resistance. From the miRNA profile, miR-15b, miR-34a, miR-148a, miR-628 and miR-196b were shown to be involved in CSCs-associated signalling pathways in both models of spheroids, which highlights the involvement of these miRNAs in maintaining the CSCs features. In addition, unique clusters of miRNAs namely miR-205, miR-181a and miR-204 were found in basal-like spheroid whereas miR-125, miR-760, miR-30c and miR-136 were identified in luminal-like spheroid. Our results highlight the roles of miRNAs as well as novel perspectives of the relevant pathways underlying spheroid-enriched CSCs in breast cancer

MiRNA transcriptome profiling of spheroid-enriched cells with cancer stem cell properties in human breast MCF-7 cell line

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide as most patients often suffer cancer relapse. The reason is often attributed to the presence of cancer stem cells (CSCs). Recent studies revealed that dysregulation of microRNA (miRNA) are closely linked to breast cancer recurrence and metastasis. However, no specific study has comprehensively characterised the CSC characteristic and miRNA transcriptome in spheroid-enriched breast cells. This study described the generation of spheroid MCF-7 cell in serum-free condition and the comprehensive characterisation for their CSC properties. Subsequently, miRNA expression differences between the spheroid-enriched CSC cells and their parental cells were evaluated using next generation sequencing (NGS). Our results showed that the MCF-7 spheroid cells were enriched with CSCs properties, indicated by the ability to self-renew, increased expression of CSCs markers, and increased resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. Additionally, spheroid-enriched CSCs possessed greater cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and wound healing ability. A total of 134 significantly (p<0.05) differentially expressed miRNAs were identified between spheroids and parental cells using miRNA-NGS. MiRNA-NGS analysis revealed 25 up-regulated and 109 down-regulated miRNAs which includes some miRNAs previously reported in the regulation of breast CSCs. A number of miRNAs (miR-4492, miR-4532, miR-381, miR-4508, miR-4448, miR-1296, and miR-365a) which have not been previously reported in breast cancer were found to show potential association with breast cancer chemoresistance and self-renewal capability. The gene ontology (GO) analysis showed that the predicted genes were enriched in the regulation of metabolic processes, gene expression, DNA binding, and hormone receptor binding. The corresponding pathway analyses inferred from the GO results were closely related to the function of signalling pathway, self-renewability, chemoresistance, tumorigenesis, cytoskeletal proteins, and metastasis in breast cancer. Based on these results, we proposed that certain miRNAs identified in this study could be used as new potential biomarkers for breast cancer stem cell diagnosis and targeted therapy