Between Eroticism and Social Criticism the Literariness of Shahnon Ahmad's Terdedah (1965)

In the history of modern Malay literature, the 1960s are labelled by many literarycritics as era picisan (the age of dime fiction) because of the flood of karya picisan(dime fiction) in the local market. Karya picisan here refers to works that clearlymanipulate sexual themes, with the intent of conjuring an atmosphere of eroticismto attract readers. Critics generally do not consider these works to be karya sastra(literary works) because they do not fulfil two important criteria that commonlyclassify the term ‘literature', namely bahasa yang indah (aesthetic language) and isiyang berfaedah (beneficial content). In the context of this definition of ‘literature',Shahnon Ahmad's 1965 novel Terdedah is considered problematic because ofincongruities in the estimation of its ‘literariness'. As opposed to critics whoinitially labelled it karya picisan, the ‘literariness' of Terdedah was defended byits own author because it contained elements social criticism. This difference inopinion raises an important point regarding the commonly accepted definitionsof ‘literature' and ‘literariness' in Malay literature: after Shahnon proclaimed hisnovel's worth based on its social criticism, critical reception towards Terdedahshowed an unmistakable shift. With respect to this shift of opinion, this articlewill perform a critical analysis of the meaning of ‘literariness' in relation toTerdedah, and in doing so, clearly determine its status as either a karya picisan orkarya sastra, based on the definition of ‘literature' practised in Malay literature

Human Resource Management And The Performance Of Selected Small And Medium Manufacturing Enterprises

Despite many studies on human resource management can be found in the literature, until recently, studies on the moderating effects of this factor on the relationship between innovation and firm performance are hardly existent. In filling the literature gap, this study attempts to address the questions of how HRM practices and its interactions with innovation affect the performance of SMEs. Two hundred eighty-four samples were obtained from the food and beverage, textile and clothing and wood-based small and medium manufacturing enterprises in Malaysia. Using the multiple regression analysis, this study found that human resource management practices in terms of employee and employer’s trainings interacted with innovation and significantly affected the performance of SMEs. Keywords: Human Resource Management, Innovation, Firm Performance, Malaysi

Enhancing the Competitiveness of Auto-Parts Enterprises: The Case of Proton’s Suppliers

The launch of the national car project provided greater opportunities for local enterprises to be involved in the auto-parts making industry. However, the unprecedented pace of globalization, trade liberalization and capital movement in recent times has posed great challenges for local enterprises, particularly auto-parts suppliers to compete in the open market. Public-private partnership would be one of the ways to mitigate the unexpected impact of globalization. This effort would be more effective if factors contributing to firm competitiveness are known in advance. This paper provides empirical insights into factors affecting the competitive position of auto-parts suppliers operating in Malaysia. This paper furnishes useful guidelines for the firms in order to remain competitive in the open market mechanism and for better public-private partnership in the automobile industry. A multiple regression analysis of primary data showed that two internal factors – quality and ownership structure, pose significant influence on the competitive position of auto-parts enterprises. Hence, any public-private partnership drive to develop the sector, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), should be devoted to these two assets.- competitiveness, proton, auto-parts, suppliers, Malaysia

Used cooking oil as a source for biodiesel blend

With the depleted world petroleum reserves and increase demand for oil as a fuel, it has become imperative to investigate the possibility of using non-fossil fuel as an alternative fuel for diesel engine. Therefore, this paper describes the experimental investigation on possibility of producing biodiesel from used cooking oil and their properties, characteristics and performance as a blended biodiesel for diesel engine at constant speed. Properties analysis of biodiesel from used cooking oil in accordance to the ASTM D6751 specification showed that it fulfilled the requirements of a biodiesel fuel specification. Comparison also conducted between the ordinary diesel as a standard fuel and several set of blended biodiesel range from I% to 5% volume of biodiesel. The properties of blended biodiesel were not much different to the properties of conventional diesel fuel except the density and specific gravity. The density of diesel is 0.8358 gm/cc and the biodiesel is 0.8723 gm/cc. For blended biodiesel, it's slightly increased from 0.8363 gm/cc for I% to 0.8385 gm/cc for 5%. The results from Detroit Deisel Engine performance test showed that the blending fuel sample produced almost the same performance characteristics as compared to conventional diesel. As a result, blended biodiesel with used cooking oil is suitable to be used up to 5% as a fuel for diesel engine at constant speed and gives the same engine performances as conventional diesel fue

Breathing Modes in Rotating Bose-Condensed Gas: An Exact Diagonalization Study

We present an exact diagonalization study of the breathing mode collective excitations for a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate of $N=10$ spinless bosons interacting via repulsive finite-range Gaussian potential and harmonically confined in quasi-two-dimension. The yrast state and the low-lying excited states are variationally obtained in given subspaces of the quantized total angular momentum $L$ employing the beyond lowest Landau level approximation in slowly rotating regime with $0 \le L < 2N$. For a given $L$, the low-energy eigenspectra (bands) are obtained in weakly to moderately interacting regime. Further, for a given interaction, the split in low-lying eigenenergies with increasing $L$ is the precursor to spontaneous symmetry breaking of the axisymmetry associated with the entry of the first vortex. With increase in repulsive interaction, the value of the first breathing mode increases for stable total angular momentum states L=0~\mbox{and}~N, but decreases for intermediate $0<L<N$ metastable states. The position of the observed first breathing modes in the eigenspectrum remains unchanged as the interaction is varied over several orders of magnitude.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, RevTex two colum