Socio-spatial inequalities in Sarawak: the role of Sarawak corridor of renewable energy (score)

The failure of the colonial government to develop the economic sector for this state was due to the adoption of a biased development approach. The biased approach focused on the potential of existing urban areas, and on economic growth oriented rather than distributed growth. Various economic development projects had been implemented since Sarawak became part of Malaysia. As the biggest state in the country with multi-ethnic population, Sarawak definitely needs more strategic development approach and attention from the central government. The Ninth Malaysia Plan has shown that spatial inequality in Sarawak has widened and needs attention. The launching of Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) marked the shift to the new approach of development in improving the spatial inequality in Sarawak through regional development strategy. This paper discusses the spatial inequality in Sarawak and explore the potential role of SCORE in regional development

Forecasting Natural Rubber Price in Malaysia by 2030

Natural rubber (NR) has recently become one of Malaysia's most important economic sectors. Despite, the price of Standard Malaysia Rubber 20 changes frequently. That is why it is important to develop a NR price forecasting model. Because there was a significant time lag between making output decisions and the actual output of the commodity in the market. The aim of this study is to determine the time series pattern for natural rubber price in Malaysia within 1995 until 2020 and to forecast the natural rubber price in Malaysia for 10 years ahead. The data used is from year 1995 until 2020 that were obtained from Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB). This study also used univariate forecasting like Naïve with Trend, Double Exponential Smoothing, Holt’s Winter and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). Then, the measurement error is used to determine the best method to forecast the future data. The measurement error that used in this study are Mean Absolute Error, Mean Squared Error, Root Mean Square Error, Mean Absolute Percentage Error and The Theil Inequality Coefficient. Result: The natural rubber price in Malaysia showed a trend pattern. Then, ARIMA is used to determine the forecast of natural rubber price for next 10 years since it has the lowest measurement error. Conclusion: There are volatility in the price of natural rubber in Malaysia over the next 10 years

Forecasting Natural Rubber Price in Malaysia by 2030

Natural rubber (NR) has recently become one of Malaysia's most important economic sectors. Despite, the price of Standard Malaysia Rubber 20 changes frequently. That is why it is important to develop a NR price forecasting model. Because there was a significant time lag between making output decisions and the actual output of the commodity in the market. The aim of this study is to determine the time series pattern for natural rubber price in Malaysia within 1995 until 2020 and to forecast the natural rubber price in Malaysia for 10 years ahead. The data used is from year 1995 until 2020 that were obtained from Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB). This study also used univariate forecasting like Naïve with Trend, Double Exponential Smoothing, Holt’s Winter and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). Then, the measurement error is used to determine the best method to forecast the future data. The measurement error that used in this study are Mean Absolute Error, Mean Squared Error, Root Mean Square Error, Mean Absolute Percentage Error and The Theil Inequality Coefficient. Result: The natural rubber price in Malaysia showed a trend pattern. Then, ARIMA is used to determine the forecast of natural rubber price for next 10 years since it has the lowest measurement error. Conclusion: There are volatility in the price of natural rubber in Malaysia over the next 10 year

Empowering Community via Composting Practices in Promoting Sustainable Lifestyle

Composting practice is among the many sustainable practices that can be easily carried out through either small or large scale efforts. Unfortunately, composting has not been widely practiced by the public due to lack of awareness. This paper is part of a research project to promote and diffuse sustainable lifestyle to the community by exploring how the sustainability agenda can be partly addressed through composting practices carried out within the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang campus to its surrounding neighborhood. The project highlights the university community engagement to achieve community empowerment with regard to sustainable urban lifestyle. The result indicates a need to increase community awareness with regards to composting practices in order to inculcate sustainable lifestyle. The university community can be regarded as the agents to diffuse and transfer knowledge on composting best practices

Issues and Problems Faced by Rural Farmers in Paddy Cultivation: A Case Study of the Iban Paddy Cultivation in Kuala Tatau, Sarawak

Rice is an important staple food in Asia. However, modernization and rapid development have reduced and threatened the practice, especially maintaining traditional hill rice cultivation, as in this case study by the Iban in Kuala Tatau located in the largest state in Malaysia, called Sarawak. It is important to understand the problems and challenges of this issue to ensure food security among the rural population in Sarawak, particularly the Iban. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss the issues and problems faced by rice farmers in Kuala Tatau, Sarawak. The respondents were Iban farmers in Kuala Tatau; named Sungai Semanok and Kuala Serupai, were selected as it is at a great distance from urban areas named Bintulu, and they still practices paddy cultivation. For the purpose of obtaining the data, qualitative research methods through in-depth interview techniques, group discussion and observation were utilized and the data were analyzed using content analysis. The results showed that the rice sector faced major problems such as the decrease of the number of farmers and a weak system in the distribution of subsidies. However, there were differences shown in results between the two villages as well, which were in term of inadequate agricultural land, and issues on drainage and irrigation system, depending on the distance of the village from urban area, transport facilities, and other issues as discussed in the following section

An assessment of carbon footprint at Universiti Teknologi MARA Seri Iskandar Perak, Malaysia / Nor IzanaMohd Shobri ... [et al.]

Climate change and global warming have worsenedsince over the past year due to the greenhouse gas emission. Evidences show one of the main factors that contributes to global warmingis the impact of carbon footprint. Human activities are the causes of a great deal of carbon footprint. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess the carbon footprint emission at UniversitiTeknologi MARA (UiTM) Seri Iskandar, Perak. The study focuses on two categories specifically on electrical power and transportation usage that contribute to carbon footprint emission. A survey on transportation was conducted by distributing questionnaire to the staffand students within the university. Meanwhile for electrical power consumption, the study used monthly electricity bills to measure the amount of energy consumed.Data was collected and calculated with the formula developed by Green House Gas protocol, resulted in the total carbon footprint produced by UiTM Seri Iskandar Perak for the year 2014. The result of the study is hoped to provide guidelines and strategies for the university to reduce the carbon footprint emission at UiTM Seri Iskandar, Perak

A Framework for Graceful Interaction : Applying Laban Effort Theory to Define Graceful Movement Quality

Direct manipulation which was introduced in the 1990s has enriched the technological and intellectual landscape of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) where interaction style progresses from linguistic to manual interaction via graphical objects. The engagement that results in the direct manipulation activity gives rise to a new philosophy of graceful interaction. However, ever since the concept was introduced, the HCI literature does not exhibit much related work on graceful interaction. In this paper, we present a design framework for graceful interaction through the use of Laban effort theory to formalize graceful interaction design. This framework presents a theoretical proposition and practical characteristics to describe the movement qualities of graceful interaction. The framework invites and challenges interaction designers for the exploration of graceful towards aesthetic interaction

The design of aesthetic interaction: towards a graceful interaction framework

The growth of techno-dependency and the proliferation of creative engagement have spurred research towards the creation of human values through digital engagement. Against the backdrop of technology evolution, research on human computer interaction (HCI) has begun to explore dimensions of human value derived from the aesthetics of interaction. This desire for beauty aligns to the Maslow's hierarchy of human needs which acknowledge that humans needs aesthetic satisfaction to realize self-actualization. However in the past, the main focus of aesthetics in HCI research was on visual beauty of the user interface. To further explore new forms and perspective of aesthetics of interaction, we present the notion of graceful interaction. In this paper, we present the theoretical understanding derived from the multidisciplinary areas of human basic movement, aesthetics and interaction design into a graceful interaction phenomenon of interactive interface as an attempt to build the foundations for the graceful interaction framework. We also argue that the aesthetics of human movement can be applied to the online environment and illustrates how the movement paradigm and can be aligned and mapped into user experience interaction design. Based on these theoretical understandings, several theoretical propositions are formed to describe the aesthetics dimensions of graceful interaction

Institusi pondok sebagai pilihan tempat tinggal warga emas wanita ke arah kesejahteraan hidup : kajian kes di Terengganu

Institusi pondok telah menjadi salah satu pilihan tempat tinggal bagi warga emas beragama Islam untuk tujuan kerohanian. Umur yang panjang dan sihat pada usia 60 tahun dan ke atas adalah masa yang sesuai untuk mendalami ilmu agama dan aktiviti kerohanian sebagai bekalan di akhirat. Kajian ini bertujuan meneroka secara mendalam faktor pendorong warga emas memilih pondok sebagai tempat tinggal dan hubungannya dengan kesejahteraan hidup mereka. Seramai dua puluh (20) orang warga emas dalam kumpulan umur 59 hingga 80 tahun dan beragama Islam di Pondok Al-Huda, Wakaf Tapai, Marang, Terengganu dipilih sebagai responden dengan menggunakan kaedah temu bual mendalam. Maklumat daripada warga emas dikaji dan dianalisis menggunakan analisis kandungan. Hasil kajian menemui faktor utama warga emas memilih tinggal di pondok adalah untuk mencari ketenangan dan menambah ilmu agama. Kebanyakan warga emas wanita cenderung memilih tinggal di pondok kerana kesunyian hidup selepas kematian suami. Dari aspek kesejahteraan, keseluruhan warga emas seronok dan mencapai kesejahteraan jiwa menerusi pelbagai pengisian rohani dan fizikal yang disertai di pondok seperti aktiviti harian yang bermanfaat, peluang berkawan, dan jaminan keselamatan. Kajian ini menonjolkan sumbangan penting Institusi Pondok al-Huda, Wakaf Tapai, Marang, Terengganu sebagai institusi sokongan sosial yang amat diperlukan oleh warga emas untuk menjalani kehidupan pada usia tua yang sejahtera dan selamat

Factors that Influence the Quality of Life Among Undergraduate School of Quantitative Sciences (SQS) Students in Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM)

The concept of quality of life broadly encompasses on how an individual measures the goodness of multiple aspects of their life, as there are number of challenges to develop a meaningful understanding of the quality of life. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that contribute to the quality of life among undergraduate SQS students. The respondents of this cross-sectional study were 273 undergraduate students from School of Quantitative Sciences, which was selected via convenient and snowball non-probability sampling method. The collection of the primary data was performed using a questionnaire including demographic and quality of life questions. Analysis of the data was conducted through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 2.6. All the 32 items are tested for its’ reliability using the Cronbach’s alpha, and KMO’s. The values are 0.891 and 0.876 respectively. According to the results, there are six factors that contribute/ influence the QoL for the undergraduate SQS students that involved in this study, which are family, friends, academic, social wellbeing, physical and financial, and environment. The value of Cronbach alpha for each factor indicates that the reliability of internal consistency is high and reliable and the KMO’s value for the factor pattern is meritorious and the Bartlett's test of sphericity also resulted with a significant value of p < 0.0