DEVELOPING ISLAMIC-CONTENT BASED READING COMPREHENSION MATERIALS FOR ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION

This study was motivated by the needs for an appropriate reading comprehension material for the students of the English Education Department (EED) in Islamic Higher Education (1)to describe the profile of the present textbooks used by EED in IHE; (2)to describe the quality of the present textbooks used in EED of IHE; (3) to get the deeply information on the needs to design ICRCM;(4) to construct the prototype model of ICRCM; and (5) to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the prototype model. This study has used R&D which was conducted in three phases. The first was the exploration phase which consists of evaluating the quality of present textbooks used in IHE in West Sumatera, and to analyze the needs for the ICRCM textbook. The second was the prototype development phase where the prototype model was constructed, evaluated, and tried out. The last was expert validation in which experts and practitioners were involved to review the model in order to help the refinements. The results of the research indicated that the qualities of the present textbooks were fair. Meanwhile, the result of need analysis pointed out that the lecturers, students, and heads of the EED need the model of ICRBM. In the prototype devel opment phase, the draft of ICRCM was carefully constructed. It was designed using skill-based reading, authentic materials, Islamic-character building, intensive & extensive reading activities, and collaborative learning. Furthermore, the results of field tryout revealed that the students enjoy reading ICRCM in the classroom. They felt that they were motivated to read ICRCM. Finally, the results of experts’ and practitioner’s judgment showed that the reading textbook needs to be revised in terms of mechanical aspect, grammatical points and teacher’s guide. The research findings conclude that the use of ICRCM in the IHE context empirically can improve students’ motivation to read, increase their reading performance, and build their Islamic characters. These findings recommend that ICRCM could be adopted as RC materials in teaching RC at EED of IHE in West Sumatera because it had strong pedagogical justification

Effect of cultivation on maize response to nitrogen fertilizer : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Applied Science in Soil Science, Institute of Natural Resources, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Continuous cultivation of arable soils results in the decline of 'soil quality' in terms of structural degradation and nutrient depletion. It decreases soil organic matter content, induces the leaching and gaseous losses of N through enhanced nitrification and denitrification, resulting in the depletion of nitrogen content of the soils. This will affect N availability, soil moisture retention, soil aeration and the activity of soil microorganisms. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of cultivation on the response of maize to N fertiliser. A glass house experiment was conducted using four soils. The soils included a permanent pasture soil and three maize / barley grown soils which have been cultivated for 6, 17 and 34 years. Maize plants were grown at six levels of N applied as urea (0 - 500 kg N/ha). The dry matter yield response to N application indicated higher maize growth for the pasture soil than for the cultivated soils at all levels of N application. Even at the highest level of N application (500 kg N/ha) the maize dry matter yield for the cultivated soil did not reach that for the unfertilised pasture soil. This indicates that N alone was not limiting the dry matter yield among the cultivated soils. It was hypothesised that the differences in the physical conditions among these soils may also be responsible for differences in dry matter yield. In the second experiment, pasture and the 34 year cultivated soils were incubated with poultry manure for eight weeks. The addition of poultry manure was to improve the physical conditions of the soil. A glasshouse experiment was then conducted to examine the effect of poultry manure addition on the growth of maize at five levels of N (0-400 kg N/ha) applied as urea. There was a clear visual indication of an improvement in the structure of the cultivated soil due to the incorporation of poultry manure. Addition of poultry manure increased the dry matter yields of maize plants both in the cultivated and the pasture soils. The dry matter yield of plants in the cultivated soils (in the presence of manure addition) was higher than the pasture soils at low levels of N application and similar yields were obtained at the higher rates of N application. Oxygen diffusion rate (ODR) values were higher for the pasture soil than the cultivated soil. The addition of poultry manure in the initial stages, however, decreased the ODR values in both soils which is attributed to the increased consumption of oxygen by the easily decomposable organic carbon in the poultry manure. With increasing time after incubation the ODR values slowly increased in the poultry manure treated soils indicating an improvement in soil structure. The study clearly demonstrated that the impact of cultivation on maize yield was partly due to poor soil physical conditions

Economic benefits of supersonic overland operation

Environmental concerns are likely to impose some restrictions on the next generation of supersonic commercial transport. There is a global concern over the effects of engine emissions on the ozone layer which protects life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation. There is also some concern over community noise. The High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) must meet at least the current subsonic noise certification standards to be compatible with the future subsonic fleet. Concerns over sonic boom represent another environmental and marketing challenge to the HSCT program. The most attractive feature of the supersonic transport is speed, which offers the traveling public significant time-savings on long range routes. The sonic boom issue represents a major environmental and economic challenge as well. Supersonic operation overland produces the most desirable economic results. However, unacceptable overland sonic boom raise levels may force HSCT to use subsonic speeds overland. These environmental and economic challenges are likely to impose some restrictions on supersonic operation, thus introducing major changes to existing route structures and future supersonic network composition. The current subsonic route structure may have to be altered for supersonic transports to avoid sensitive areas in the stratosphere or to minimize overland flight tracks. It is important to examine the alternative route structure and the impact of these restrictions on the economic viability of the overall supersonic operation. Future market potential for HSCT fleets must be large enough to enable engine and airframe manufacturers to build the plane at a cost that provides them with an attractive return on investment and to sell it at a price that allows the airlines to operate with a reasonable margin of profit. Subsonic overland operation of a supersonic aircraft hinders its economic viability. Ways to increase the market potential of supersonic operation are described

17 July 2009 Jakarta bombing: the aftermath and longer-term implications

Although the carnage in Indonesia was not as great or as bloody as in 2002, 2003 or 2005, the political lessons to be learned in the immediate aftermath of the July 17 2009 bombing are not to be neglected. There are also various implications of the outrage on Indonesia’s self-confidence which bear reflection as the world’s most populous Muslim nation and Southeast Asia’s largest economy moves towards playing a regional role with global reach, which was how President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono (SBY) had described it in a lecture at the LSE on 31 March 2009