This paper presents a study on outdoor recreational risk factors at Johor National Park of Gunung Ledang. It located at Southern of Malaysia and consists by tropical rainforest. The biodiversity richness and the wilderness of the natural resources has become attraction for local and international tourists to visit this national park to enjoying their outdoor recreational activities. But they are exposed with the risks and hazard in the wilderness tropical rainforest and the rescuing process for the victims is difficult too. This case study data collected using semi structured interviews conducted towards the National Park Managers from each study sites. The data analyzed using NVivo 11 version. As findings, the storm seems as the main outdoor recreational risk factors identified at this national park that may cause falling tree cases in this national park. Secondly, if the accident occurs at the deep forest, the rescuing assistance procedure for the victims is very difficult and takes time to reach the accident location. As conclusion, extreme recreationists were highly expose with outdoor recreational risks in outdoor nature wilderness settings and national park operator should look into this risk issue seriously in order to ensure the visitors’ safety during their visitation to the national parks. Highly recommended, for national park operator to have a look on the necessity of helipad installation at the risky areas of national park to smoothen the rescuing process for the victims in the wilderness areas.
Masak lemak cili padi merupakan hidangan tradisional Melayu berasal dari Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Walaupun, ia popular dan disukai di kalangan rakyat Malaysia, ia jarang disediakan oleh golongan bekerjaya dan mempunyai masa yang terhad di rumah. Selain itu, faktor kesukaran untuk mencari bahan mentah dan menyediakan hidangan serta mengekalkan rasa dan kualiti masakan juga menyebabkan hidangan ini jarang disediakan di rumah . Melihat potensi dan keperluannya, satu kajian telah dijalankan untuk menghasilkan Kiub Masak Lemak Cili Padi (KMLCP). Kajian ini dijalankan untuk meninjau tahap penerimaan responden terhadap KMLCP. Instrumen soal selidik menggunakan skala Hedonic telah diedarkan secara rawak kepada 30 orang responden. Data telah dianalisis secara deskriptif dengan menggunakan SPSS versi 21. Analisis menunjukkan bahawa KMLCP diterima pada tahap baik oleh responden dengan nilai min 4.66. Kesimpulannya, KMLCP ini diterima secara optimistik oleh responden.
The Proclamation Independence Memorial is a tourist attraction in Melaka, a must visit place to get information on the events leading up to Malaysia’s Independence Day. The memorabilia and records in the Proclamation of Independence Memorial symbolize the indomitable spirit and courage of local Malays and other ethnic groups of Malaysia (formerly known as Malaya) in their fight for the country’s independence. Accessing Independence Memorial has been difficult for people who are blind and partially sighted, often due to objects being placed in glass cases and no texts or write up braille creating a barrier to access. They do not provide an equivalent experience to that which is available to the sighted audience. As a result the population who is blind and partially sighted has been significantly under served with respects to exhibits and their intellectual content. The main objective of this research is to provide an experience to blind and partially sighted visitor to get information through the braille write up and audio guide provided. To obtain relevant information, interviews were conducted with blind visitor and staffs of The Proclamation Independence Memorial at Banda Hilir Melaka. The respondent highlighted issues related to factors which restricted their accessibility to the Independence Memorial such as no write up braille and audio guided. The respondents agreed that write up braille and audio guide can attract blind partially sighted visitor to Memorial Melaka.
Penginapan merupakan perkara yang perlu ada dalam aktivti pelancogan. Salah satu contohnya adalah ‘Homestay’. Program ‘homestay’ dikenali sebagai pelanconngan yang berasaskan komuniti dan berpotensi untuk berkembang dan membangunkan masyarakat desa selain pelancong dapat merasai pengalaman semuajadi dan cara hidup mereka. Oleh itu, kepada pengusaha ‘homestay’ mereka perlu memepertingkatkan lagi kualiti perkhidmatan untuk menarik minat pelancong dari dalam dan luar negera untuk datang semula. Melalui artikel ini akan membicangkan kajian terhadap faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi kepuasan pelanggan terhadap kualti perkhidmatan ‘homestay’ di Melaka yang tertumpu kepada ‘Homestay Seri Tanjung’.
Inventori Kecekapan Emosiatau Emotional Competence Inventory(ECI)digunakan mengukur kecekapan emosiindividu dan organisasi. Instrumen ini telah diterjemahkan kepada Bahasa Melayu melalui teknik terjemahan kembali. Kebolehpercayaan dan kesahan alat kajian ini hanya diuji dalam satu populasi tempatan sahaja dan psikometrik instrumen ini belum dinilai dengan menggunakan pendekatan Permodelan Persamaan Berstruktur Kuasa Dua Terkecil Separa (PLS-SEM). Tambahan pula, penilaian kebolehpercayaan instrumen ini dengan menggunakan kaedah alpha Cronbachselalunya menghasilkan nilai ketekalan dalaman yang rendah manakala kebolehpercayaan komposit (CR-Composite Reliability) sering kali menunjukkan nilai ketekalan dalaman yang tinggi. Nilai sebenar ketekalan dalaman bagi satu-satu petunjuk perlu dikenalpasti dengan mendapatkan nilai pekali Cronbachdan nilai CR. Selain itu,pemuatan luaran bagi kompetensi dan dimensi juga akan ditentukan dalam kajian ini. Kesahan konvergen dan kesahan diskriminan digunakan untuk mengetahui kesahan kompetensi dan dimensi ECI. Kesahan konvergen ditentukan melalui nilai Average Variance Extracted(AVE) dan kesahan diskriminan dikenalpasti melalui analisis Kriteria Fornell-Larckerdan analisis Cross-Loadings. Seramai 130 orang responden yang dipilih secara rawak melalui pensampelan berkelompok terlibat dalam kajian ini. Data dianalisis dengan menggunakan perisian SmartPLS versi 3.2.8. Hasil kajian telah berjaya menentukan nilai sebenar ketekalan dalaman setiap kompetensi dan dimensi instrumen ini. Kompetensidan dimensidalam instrumen ECI ini mempunyai kebolehpercayaan yang baik dengan nilai CR dan pemuatan luaran melebihi 0.70. Alat kajian ini juga menunjukkan tahap kesahan konvergen yang baik apabila nilai AVE kompetensi dan dimensi ECI melebihi 0.50. Analisis Kriteria Fornell-Larcker mendapati kuasa dua AVE bagi setiap kompetensi dan dimensi ECI adalah lebih tinggi daripada korelasi kompetensi dan dimensi lain yang dinilai. Setiap kompetensi bermuat baik dalam dimensinya sendiri daripada dimensi yang lain setelah analisis Cross-Loadings dijalankan
This paper aims to review the literature with regards to the family caregivers of severe traumatic brain injury survivors and their needs for care at home. The search started by finding the relevant keywords from EBSCOhost: MeSH database. There were many related studies found by searching the following multiple databases. They are from Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) reviews @ Ovid, Journal @ Ovid Full text, Medline with Full text via EBSCOhost, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Science Direct, and Google scholars' articles. The search terms were limited to publications ranging from 2010 to 2016. Several points were highlighted regarding the needs of family caregivers who had been taking care of traumatic brain injury survivors. It also provided information on the needs of family caregivers in terms of care, traumatic brain injury, TBI survivor complications, family caregiver's burden, caregiver challenges and the impact of traumatic brain injury to family caregiver's quality of life. Overall, the study shows that family caregivers face significant challenges toward care of TBI survivors. The review highlighted the support needed from the family caregivers, and other important facts about severe traumatic brain injury in order to understand the condition. Further research should focus on rehabilitation efforts on traumatic brain injury survivors.
Kesepaduan sosial adalah indikator penting bagi mencerminkan situasi aman dan harmoni sesebuah komuniti. Ia merupakan prasyarat kepada kestabilan dalam mendepani sebarang isu yang mencetuskan konflik atas sebab agama dan etnik. Kajian lepas menunjukkan hubungan antara agama dan etnik di Malaysia bersifat turun naik yang digambarkan dalam tiga fasa; era konflik, era stabil tetapi tegang dan era kesepaduan sosial. Makalah ini mebincangkan elemen dan indikator kesepaduan sosial yang membentuk hubungan harmonis antara agama dalam kalangan masyarakat pedalaman Sabah. Elemen kesepaduan sosial boleh diperhatikan melalui sikap toleransi dan sikap penerimaan terhadap isu-isu yang melibatkan hubungan antara agama. Pengumpulan data menggunakan metode kuantitatif dan kualitatif melalui soal selidik, pemerhatian dan temubual bersama informan terpilih di daerah Tambunan dan Tenom, Sabah melibatkan komuniti Muslim dan non-Muslim. Dapatan analisis SPSS secara deskriptif menunjukkan beberapa elemen dan indikator kesepaduan sosial dibina melalui interaksi seharian seperti makan bersama, tinggal bersama, sambutan perayaan, menghadiri upacara pengkebumian, penyediaan makanan untuk sahur dan berbuka puasa, perlaksanaan solat di rumah pihak berbeza agama. Hasil kajian menunjukkan sikap penerimaan dan akomodatif mencatatkan respon tertinggi serta kesediaan penganut pelbagai agama menangani perbezaan dan konflik secara harmonis. Sikap dan perlakuan inilah yang memupuk kesepaduan sosial sehingga terbentuk ahli komuniti masyarakat berbeza agama yang mudah berkompromi dan akomodatif di pedalaman Sabah
Sarawak has declared that the country will be shifting to the new digital era following the trend with the rest of the world. In conjunction with the shift, Sarawak will be upgrading its economy from dependence on the physical form with efficiency as well the effectiveness of the support from the Digital era technology. In still the Sarawak Digital Economy Policy 2018 – 2022 was established by the Chief Minister of Sarawak to materialize the agenda. To support the agenda, the authors distributed 312 questionnaires cross the Sarawak 8 District. The findings have shown the level of readiness among individual on Sarawak Digital Economy policy which needs to beaddressed by the local authorities to ensure these agenda become successful
Degenerative mitral valve prolapse without proper monitoring can cause severe mitral valve failure and occasionally lead to sudden death if the surgical correction is not performed ontime. In most cases, mitral valve prolapse would cause mitral regurgitation which in a severe case would lead to left ventricle failure due to hemodynamic burden. The aim of this study is to develop a model to predict the degeneration behaviour of mitral valve which will aid the medical practitioner to estimate the mitral valve condition based on the available mitral regurgitation data by echocardiogram assessment. Minimal hemodynamic model has been adopted with modification to obtain mitral regurgitation severity information. The stress-strain behaviour of mitral leaflet has also been studied to model the degeneration of the mitral valve leaflet. Both models were validated with the previously published data generated using Windkessel and Burkhoff methods. The coupling of both models gave the degenerative behaviour of mitral valve leaflet in relation with mitral regurgitation severity. The mitral valve degeneration was assessed by mitral valve leaflet elasticity properties while the severity of mitral regurgitation was measured by the volume of mitral regurgitation into the left atrium. It was found that the reduction of mitral valve leaflet elasticity would cause an increase of the mitral regurgitation volume into the left atrium. Mitral regurgitation severity was found to be less than 10% of left ventricle stroke volume when the mitral valve leaflet degenerates more than 90%. At this point, even with a slight increase of less than 10% in the degeneration of mitral valve leaflet, the regurgitation volume might increase suddenly from 5% up to 95% of the left ventricle stroke volume
Introduction: Ministry of Health (MOH) Malaysia colleges, offer diploma and advanced diploma programmes for nursing, assistant medical officer and other allied health personnel. As academic institutions, the trainers are encouraged to participate and enhance the colleges' research productivity. The aim of this study is to explore the perceived barriers and motivation factors for research in MOH colleges. Method: Aqualitative research design was conducted among MOH colleges trainers. Semi structured questions were used in 11 Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and 13 In-Depth Interview (IDI) among 98 respondents from seven MOH colleges. Thematic analysis was used to identify emerging themes from the interviews. Results: Three institutional factors motivate engagement in research: key performance indicator, research support and research skills. Majority of respondents were aware of the importance of research, but their research productivity is low due to perceived barriers related to human resource, research material, technical and funding support. Conclusion: The findings are useful in understanding research motivation as well as ascertain barriers that can be overcome through better support and recognition. Such understanding will help improve the policy for research across the colleges.
Introduction: Critical thinking is an important element in nursing practice as well as being a vital educational outcome in any nursing curriculum. Critical thinking can influence the outcome of patient care and patient satisfaction. Objective: To determine the level of critical thinking ability among nursing students in two nursing colleges and its differences according to social demographic variables. Method: This was a cross sectional descriptive study design in which Critical Ability Scale for College Students were used to collect data from 158 nursing students in two private nursing colleges in Malaysia. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling. Results: The mean overall score for critical thinking ability was 70.6±6.98 with scores ranging from 56 to 89. The mean score of the subscales was 3.63±0.50 for intellectual, eagerness and health skepticism abilities, 3.63±0.42 for intellectual honesty ability, 3.61± 0.41 for prudence ability and 2.68±0.64 for objectivity ability. There are no significant differences between the independent variables and level of critical thinking ability. Conclusion: A high critical thinking ability score was reported with intellectual, eagerness and health skepticism being the highest subscale. The way forward requires academicians and clinicians to work together to ensure a transfer of knowledge and skills from the classroom to the clinical environment in order to develop and enhance the ability to think critically in making clinical decision and produce thinking nurses for the future.
Background: Hospital medicine is characterized as a multifaceted team-based activity with a necessity for a high level of accuracy, timely, and reliable communication. Effective communication among healthcare providers is the key to successful collaboration within the healthcare system. Effective communication can improve patient safety, job satisfaction, and reduce burn out syndrome among nurses. The purpose of the study was to identify the factors contributing to the competency gap between and doctors in four private hospitals in Malaysia. Method: The study used a descriptive qualitative design to elicit the experience of 15 doctors from three private hospitals. A semi-structured interview was conducted to collect the data. The data were analyzed using Colaizzi's method for thematic data analysis. Results: The findings of the study suggested three main categories as the factors contributing to the communication gap among nurses and doctors as perceived by specialist doctors. The three categories include nurses training attributes, graduate nurse attributes, and work environment attributes. The nurses training attributes include entry requirements for student's recruitment into the nursing program, undergraduate training process, and assessment of student nurses. The graduate nurse's attributes had nine elements. The elements include a post-registration thirst for knowledge, medical English knowledge, self-confidence, stress management skills, critical thinking, and clinical judgment skills, perceived power on the authority of doctors, passion to work, time management skills as well as stress and personal factors of nurses. The working environment attributes included workload of nurses, teamwork among nurses Preceptorship, and appreciation of nurses by the organization. The informants also suggested measures to overcome the competency gaps among nurses. Conclusion: In conclusion, the nurse's communication competency is a vital factor in determining patient safety and quality of care. The quality of nursing care has a significant impact on the image of any health care organization. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the factors contributing to poor communication among nurses and doctors and to initiate interventions to fill the communication gap.
This study examines the impact of tax on consumption behaviour by focusing on selected countries from Asia. The study adopts panel fixed effect and random estimators to gauge the influence of tax on consumption expenditures. Findings of the study support negative influence of tax on household consumption. The finding is parallel with the absolute income hypothesis that high volume of tax collected from the public results in falling households’ disposable incomes, hence downwardly affecting households’ consumption levels. The study’s finding implies the importance of carefully observing appropriate tax policy that suit the country’s level of development in promoting high rates of economic growth and consumption.
This study is attempting to study the convergence of high-technology productivity of the automotive industry in Asia. This study uses time series data collected from 10 Asian countries from 2002-2016. In addition, this study was tested using the panel method proposed by Phillips and Sul (2007a), to identify whether the convergence of automotive technology high-tech productivity convergence or divergence. The results for full panel convergence in this study show divergence. However, in this study there were three convergence clubs found. The first clubs are Japan, South Korea and Thailand, the second club is Indonesia and Iran while the third club is Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. This study suggests that governments need to play an important role to implement good policies to attract more Asian countries to work with each other. This study can be summarized that economies in Asian countries experience different levels of development and the shift in economic behaviour is very different among Asian countries.
Writing is an important skill necessary for students pursuing a higher level of education. The challenge for second language learners would be to write accurate academic essays as required by the course for students that has been aligned to the Common European Framework (CEFR) B1 standard since 2015 at a public institution of higher learning. The academic English course offered at a public institution of higher learning was subjected to a guided academic writing using online tools by Harju and Åkerblom (2017) description of the teacher’s role in facilitating learning to achieve the intended learning outcome which is to write an academic essay focusing on its features. The participants in this study were second year undergraduates in the second semester of their study who struggled to write an essay early in the semester. This study used a quantitative analysis collected from 10 participating students (n=10). The results found that the students made improvements to the feature of their essay and their feedback of the intervention were processed using frequency analysis indicated a hundred percent preference of the students to learn by their own discretion guided by the instructor and supported with online learning tools.
This study aims to explore gender, race, stress and sleep quality as factors which influence the academic performance of undergraduate students. The samples of study involved 80 students from the Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. Questionnaire used in the data collection comprising demographic information, stress questionnaire (Student Stress Inventory (SSI)) and sleep quality questionnaire (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)). The academic performance of the undergraduate students in this study was measured by their cumulative grade point average (CGPA). The result of the study showed that female students performed better than male students; whilst non-Bumiputera students performed better than Bumiputera students. The study also found that the higher the stress level of a student (SSI score), the lower his or her CGPA results. Moreover, the findings showed that there is a significant difference in FCSHD undergraduates’ academic performance based on their sleep quality, in which the mean of CGPA for students with good sleep quality is higher than that of students with bad sleep quality. Ultimately, the study reveals that gender and race do play a part in the academic performance of students and having good sleep quality and a little bit of stress is equally important in learning and helpful in attaining good grades and hence, should be leveraged by students.
Face recognition is an emerging field due to the technological advances in camera hardware and for its application in various fields such as the commercial and security sector. Although the existing works in 3D face recognition perform well, a similar experiment setting across classifiers is hard to find, which includes the Random Forest classifier. The aggregations of the classification from each decision tree are the outcome of Random Forest. This paper presents 3D facial recognition using the Random Forest method using the BU-3DFE database, which consists of basic facial expressions. The work using other classifiers such as Neural Network (NN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) using a similar experiment setting also presented. As for the results, the Random Forest approach has yield 94.71% of recognition rate, which is an encouraging result compared to NN and SVM. In addition, the experiment also yields that fear expression is unique to each human due to a high confidence rate (82%) of subjects with fear expression. Therefore, a lower chance to be mistakenly recognized someone with a fear expression.
Contamination of drinks with E. coli O157:H7 served in food premises such as restaurants can cause haemorrhagic colitis and haemolytic uremic syndrome to humans. The presence or absence of faecal pathogen was demonstrated using coliform group as indicator microorganisms. Therefore, this study was conducted to detect the presence of E. coli O157:H7 in drinking water from food restaurant premise in Kota Samarahan and Kuching to ensure safe and potable drinking water is served to the consumer. A total of thirty (n=30) drink samples including six types of each of the samples are cold plain water, iced tea, iced milo, syrup and iced milk tea. Most Probable Number (MPN) procedure was used in this study to enumerate the MPN values of coliform bacteria in each drink collected. A total of 53.33% (16/30) of the drink samples showed positive E. coli detection. Then, the PCR assay showed 6.25% (one out of 16 isolates) samples were positive and carried stx1 gene produced by E. coli O157:H7 in iced milo sample types. This study showed the drinks collected from food premises was contaminated with faecal contamination, which was not safe to drink by the consumer. Therefore, preventive actions should be taken to prevent foodborne illness outbreak in future
MOHAMAD FHAIZAL BIN MOHAMAD BUKHORI, MOHD RIDWAN BIN ABD RAHMAN, MUHAMAD IKHWAN BIN IDRIS, MOHD AMINUDIN BIN MUSTAPHA, MOHAMAD RAZIF BIN OTHMAN, NOORAZMAN BIN SAMSUDIN
A comprehensive learning experience in biodiversity-related discipline is the only practical way to introduce students into the world of flora. Thus, this study was carried out at Kubah National Park as the park is known for its flora and fauna diversity to investigate plant species which are of timber-related importance. The study identified and documented seven different plant families with 12 species of timber-related usage at Kubah National Park.
Language is a medium of delivering variety of effective desires. This study examines the Punjabi language used by the Sikhs in Malaysia. The objective of the study is to identify animal elements in the Punjabi figurative language. This study is qualitative. The five animal figurative languages cited by the interview method were analyzed based on the inquisitive semantic approach Nor Hashimah Jalaluddin (2014). The findings suggest that there are some advice through figurative language that incorporates animal elements in his speech. The meanings of the semantic surface mean that it only shows the meaning of a layer. With the inquisitive semantic approach, the findings of the study show the mention of animal elements in the speech of the folklore language of the societal society mixed with irony and have the philosophy of the life of this society. Each figurative language analyzed illustrates the layered meaning that needs to be peered by linking the meanings of the society to the whole of society as well as aspects of their norms and thoughts as well as the actions of their daily life. Studies have also found that these metaphysical utterances are based on observations of their abstract-shaped environment and nature and require careful observation. Finally, it is found that the inquisitive semantic approach that combines the data, theories, the cognition and the philosophy and the minds of a society can reveal the true meaning to be conveyed through this metaphorical language. With the semantics of the script, the meaning of the simplest is known. Then with the semantics of resonance, the mapping of the meaning of this layer is associated with the cognitive of the speaker and ultimately with the inquisitive semantic analysis, a more descriptive meaning can be manifested. The connotation of the meaning can be constructed one by one with three levels of analysis in semantic incuity. The meanings obtained are higher in legality.