At present, marine scientists employ manual method to estimate the components in coral reef environment,where Coral Point Count with Excel extensions (CPCe) software is used to determine the coral reef components and substrate coverage. This manual processis laboriousand time consuming,and needsexpertsto conduct the survey. In this paper, a prototype for estimating the distribution of sand cover in coral reef environment from still images by using colourextraction methods was introduced. The coloursegmentation called delta E was used to calculate the colourdifference between two coloursamples. Another method used wascolourthresholdby setting the range of sand colourpixels. Thesystem was developed by using a MATLAB software withimage processing toolbox. The developed system was semi-automatic computer-based system that can be used by researcherseven with little knowledge and experience to estimatethepercentage of sand coveragein coral reef still images.
MeSH terms: Animals; Computer Systems; Computers; Surveys and Questionnaires; Research Design; Software; Anthozoa; Coral Reefs
Parser is aprocess of classifying sentence structuresof a language. Parser receives a sentence and breaks it up into correct phrases. The purpose of this research is to develop a Malay single sentence parser that can help primary school studentsto learn Malay language according to the correct phrases. Thisis because research in Malay sentenceparsinghasnot gottenenough attention from researchers tothe extent ofbuildingparserprototypes. This research used top-down parsing technique,and grammar chosen was context-free grammar (CFG) for Malay language. However, to parse a sentence with correct phrase was a difficult task due to lack of resourcesfor obtainingMalay lexicon. Malay lexicon is a database that storesthousands of words with their correct phrases. Therefore, this research developeda Malay lexicon based on an articlefrom Dewan Masyarakatmagazine. In conclusion, this research can providehelpto the primaryschoolstudentsto organize correct Malay single sentences.
Batik industryiswell known intheEast Coast of Malaysia, particularly in Terengganu and Kelantan. This industry consumes a lot of waterforthe batik making processwhich contributes tohigh dischargeof wastewater containingexcess dye pollutants. Hence,in this study, ananionic clayofnickel/aluminium-layered double hydroxide (NiAL) was investigatedas a potential adsorbent for the removal of anionic dyeof Eriochrome Black T (EBT). The NiAL was synthesized via self-assemblymethod and characterization of NiALwas carried outusing powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR). The composition and morphology of NiAL was further analyzed using carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur elemental analyzer (CHNS), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and scanning electron microscope (SEM).The potential of NiAL as an adsorbent for the removal ofEBT in aqueous solution was tested at different dosages of NiAL. Theadsorptionabilitywasanalyzedby using two common adsorption isotherms, which were Langmuir and Freundlich models. The adsorption of EBT onto NiAL was governedby Freundlich isotherm model indicating that the adsorption occurs in heterogeneous system.
Salinity is one of the major constraintsin the rice production worldwide. Rice plants have moderate tolerance towardssalinity. Salinitychangescell membrane permeability and fatty acid compositionsby releasing the free fatty acids. Nonetheless, the effect of exogenous fatty acid such as arachidonic acid (AA) on rice grown on saline soil is yetunknown. Theobjective of the current study isto determine the effectofAA onthe morphological traits and freefatty acidsofrice plantgrown under saline conditions.Rice plants grown on saline soil (EC=12 ds/m)were treated with 50 μMAAon day 45 after transplant. Leaves and panicleswere sampledafter two weeks of treatment and analysed for fatty acid profile using GC-MS. Themorphological traits were observedat the maturity stage. Results showed that AA treatment improved the grain fill-in of the saline stress riceand reduced the accumulation of free fatty acids in the cell. The AAtreatment also increased the linoleic acid (18:2), linolenic acid (18:3) in paniclesand, dihomo-γ-linolenic acid(20:3) and nervonic acid (24:1) in leaves. The finding suggests that exogenous AAregulates salinity stress in rice by reducing the accumulation offree fatty acids.
The distinctive regenerative ability of local marine worm (polychaete),Diopatra claparediiGrube, 1878, has the potential as a cellular growth agent. In this study, the growth effect was investigatedin normal cellsand cancer cells. Different concentrations (0-100
Taxis, being a significant element of mobility, play a sufficiently great role in public transportation. However, the issues towards taxi services have gradually increaseddue tothe poor servicesgiven to passengers by taxi operators,leadingto the demand for otherride servicealternatives.With the developmentof technology, GrabCarwasdeveloped and launched asanonline taxi booking through smartphone application which can easily connectpassengers and drivers. The main purpose of this study is to find out the perception of taxi operators towards GrabCar service and vice versa sothatthere will be a clear point of view to identify opportunities andchallenges for taxi operators. Standardized open-endedinterviews were conducted with5taxi and 5 GrabCar operatorsin Kuala Terengganu and Kuala Nerus. Interview transcriptswere analyzed using content analysis. The findingsshowedthat there weremore challenges than opportunities for the taxi operators. This studycould help the government to improvetaxi services in general and GrabCar servicesin sharing economy.
This paper provides preliminary evidence ofthe need foraccounting for trash management in public organizations, in particular, UniversitiMalaysia Terengganu (UMT). It has two objectives: tosolicit opinions from students regarding their behaviorsand perceptions towards recycling habits,and to provide data on the extent of accounting for trash management at UMT. A survey among155 UMT students indicatedthat theyrecycled the trashandwereaware of environmental issues caused by the waste. However, they were not informed about the benefits of environmental management accounting practice particularly regardingtrash management. Interviewswith UMT management also revealed that while UMT supported recycling activities byfunding the projects and providing facilities, the data on the opportunity cost involved in the current practice was never integrated into UMT accounting system. As a result, the management hadno idea of how much was lost (or gained) during the process. Based on the findings,this study callsfor the implementation of accounting for trash management in a public university.
MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources; Garbage; Habits; Humans; Perception; Surveys and Questionnaires; Students; Universities; Recycling
There are various teaching methods developed in order to attainsuccessful delivery of a subject without prior knowledge of the interaction among the students in a class. Social network analysis (SNA) can be used to identify individual, intermediate and group measures of interaction in a classroom. The idea is on identifying ways to boost the students’ performance by means of lecturer’s intervention based on their interaction. The case study was conducted involvingthird year batchthat consistedof 76 female and 24 male students. A friendship network was drawn based on the information obtained at the end of semester 5 and it wasinvestigated based on two metrics–centralitymeasures and Girvan-Newman algorithm. At the end of semester 5, grades were added asthe attributes of the network.12 clusters were found in this batch and a distinct pattern was identified between performing and poor achieving students. At the beginning of the 6th semester, the studentsweregiven the option to choose between 2 groups. Group 1 was unperturbed without any lecturer’s intervention whereas the performing students’ clusters in Group 1 were preserved but the students in poor performing clusters were distributed among performing clusters. The students were then asked to carry out assignments/quizzesin their respective groups. The final grades indicatedthat the performance of the students of Group 1 wasmuch superior and there wasclear evidence that those poor performing students in the 5th semester performed much better in semester 6. This shows that by understanding the students’ interaction and incorporatiniginstructor’s minimal intervention, the performance of the students can be improved by creating a social contagion effect through group assignment clustering.
In general, the nature of gold that acts as a hedge against inflation and its stable price over the course of the financial crisis has made it a unique commodity. Priceforecasts are a must for gold producers, investors and central bank to know the current trends in gold prices. Forecasting the future value of a variableis often done with time series analysis method. This study was conducted to determine the best model for forecasting gold commodity prices as well as forecasting world gold commodity prices in 2018 using Box-Jenkins approach. The data used in this study wasobtained from Investing.Com from 2015 until 2017. Thisstudy shows that ARIMA (1,1,1) is the best model to predict gold commodity prices based on Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). MAPE value for ARIMA (1,1,1) is 0.02%, where this value proves that forecasting using ARIMA (1,1,1) is the best forecasting becauseMAPE value is less than 10%.
MeSH terms: Forecasting; Gold; Investments; Research Design; Moclobemide
This paper aims at solving an optimization problem in the presence of heavy tail behavior of financial assets. The question of minimizing risk subjected to a certain expected return or maximizing return fora given expected risk are two objective functions to be solved using Markowitz model. The Markowitz based strategies namely the mean variance portfolio, minimum variance portfolio and equally weighted portfolio are proposed in conjunction with mean and variance analysis of the portfolio. The historical prices of stocks traded at Bursa Malaysia are used for empirical analysis. We employed CAPM in order to investigate the performance of the Markowitz model which was benchmarked with risk adjusted KLSE Composite Index. We performed a backtesting study of portfolio optimization techniques defined under modern portfolio theory in order to find the optimal portfolio. Our findings showthat the mean variance portfolio outperformed the other two strategies in termsof performance of investment for heavy tailed assets.
MeSH terms: Financial Statements; Analysis of Variance; Investments; Malaysia; Benchmarking
This study focused on feasibility analysis of hybrid electrification system for an aqua-tourism resort located remotely from the grid connection in Terengganu. There were four standalone systems used in this study: diesel/PV/biomass/battery, diesel/PV/battery, biomass/diesel/battery, and diesel only. The design and analysis of these systems were done using Hybrid Optimization of MultipleEnergy Resources (HOMER) software. The results showed that the diesel/PV/battery system was the optimum solution in terms of net present cost (NPC) and cost of energy (COE). This system comprises 20 % of PV penetration with NPC and COE of USD 57,823 (RM 241, 729.90) and 0.428 USD/kWh (1.79 RM/kWh), respectively. Meanwhile, the diesel/PV/biomass/battery system with NPC of USD 65,388 (RM 273, 355.49) and COE of 0.484 USD/kWh (2.02 RM/kWh) was found to be the best among all systems in terms of greenhouse emissions. This system was able to reduce almost 70 % of carbon dioxide if compared with diesel only system and about 15 % lower than the diesel/PV/battery system with a renewable energy fraction of 44 %.
MeSH terms: Carbon Dioxide; Computer Systems; Electrodes; Feasibility Studies; Electric Power Supplies; Software; Biomass; Renewable Energy
owadays the increasing prevalence of dietary disease has raised consumers’ awareness of healthy diet and lifestyle. The rise in the use of nutrition and health claims to promote health benefits in food products help consumers make effective food choices. There is very limited research regarding nutrition and health claims in Malaysia. This research focused on consumers’ knowledge, perception (i.e. perceived quality, perceived healthiness, perceived value, perceived importance, trust and perceived familiarity), and attitude towards nutrition and health claims on dairy products as well as their purchase intention towards the products, and examinethe relationship between these variables in Johor Bahru, Johor. All responses were collected by distributing questionnaire to convenience and quota sample (n=200). Data was analysed to obtain descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The results showed that most of the consumers (46%) had moderate knowledge of nutrition and health claims on dairy products. Consumers generally had almost positive perception and attitude towards nutrition and health claims on dairy products and positive purchase intention towards dairy products. Almost all independent variables correlated with purchase intention towards dairy products. Consumer attitude had the strongest positive relationship with purchase intention (r=0.722), followed by moderate positive correlation between consumer perception and purchase intention (r=0.671), while consumer knowledge only had low relationship with purchase intention (r=0.299). This study added new knowledge regarding public purchasing behaviour towards dairy products with nutrition and health claims. This research also provided valuable information for both food manufacturers and companies to help them make effective decisions to improve the presentation of nutrition and health claims for better expression of information as well as the goodness of food products in order to attract the attention of health-conscious consumers.
MeSH terms: Attention; Consumer Behavior; Dairy Products; Diet; Food Preferences; Health Promotion; Malaysia; Perception; Surveys and Questionnaires; Prevalence; Intention; Trust
Malaysia is also affected by the economic crisis as it applies the door-to-door policy economy even though the crisis has started on a global platform. Therefore, the objective of this study is to see how far economic recession affects development expenditure, domestic investment, and foreign direct investment in Malaysia. Using secondary data from 1980 to 2015, unit root tests, Johansen co-integration test, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), and Granger-causality test were carried out. The findings showed that there was a long run relationship between the economic recession and at least one independent variable while there was no short run relationship between the variables. For causal relationships, the economic recession was the cause of domestic development and investment expenditure while foreign direct investment was the cause of the recession, domestic development, and investment spending. Hence, the government must ensure economic stability by implementing various policies.
Gold is a valuable asset to a country because of itsliquidity.Gold reserve can stabilize the currency in a country.The objectiveof this paper is to identify the factors contributingto the volatility of gold prices, such as Real Malaysia GDP, inflation rates, crude oil pricesand exchange rates. The data was analysed using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approachwith time series data, with 30-year coverage from 1987 to 2016. Findings showed that only Real Malaysia GDP and crudeoil priceswere significantly relatedto gold prices. As a conclusion, this study can beusedas reference byother investors.The author suggests toother researchers to further improve upon this study by adding more variables or diversifying the variables that relate to volatility of gold prices
Industrial development plays the most important role inthe degradationof the global environment. In line with this issue, most universities in the world have introduced environmentalmanagement to increase awarenessamong young generation towards the environment. Therefore, this study is employed to examine the influences of hygiene practices, awareness and involvement levels towards environmentalhygiene among UMT students. The design of this study is quantitative using cross-sectionaldata collectedfrom students at residential colleges in Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. A total of 120 respondents participatedbut only data from 100 students could be used for further analysis after the datascreening process. The result of this study showed that the level of awareness of UMT students on environmental issues could be categorized as moderate. Besides that, this study found that the level of awareness had significant positive influences on environmentalhygiene. Meanwhile, hygiene practices and the level of involvement did not have significant influences on environmentalhygiene. In addition, using the findings of this study, we suggest that the stakeholders of UMT increase the hygiene practice and involvement among young generation to increase the level of awareness regarding environmental hygiene.
MeSH terms: Industrial Development; Family Characteristics; Humans; Hygiene; Malaysia; Surveys and Questionnaires; Students; Universities
This study examined biological asset information that has been reported by companies in Malaysia and the methods of valuation used in reporting the biological assets. It aimed to provide useful information to the regulators about the application of MFRS 141, the accounting standards for agriculture, in corporate reporting. This study employed the data derived from the 2016 annual reportsof plantation companies listed on Bursa Malaysia. Descriptive analysis was used to examine the biological asset information that has been reported and the characteristics of the companies such as age, size, and leverage. The results of this study showed that most of the plantation companies believed that fair value and historical cost could be the best way to measure their biological assets. The findings of this study provide input towards identifying the gap in corporate reporting practices and the challenges faced by companies in the application of MFRS 141. The findings are expected to contribute to the regulatory improvement towards increasing the full adoption of MFRS 141 by companies in Malaysia.
MeSH terms: Accounting; Agriculture; Malaysia; Professional Corporations; Reference Standards
Fine particulate matter (aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) (PM2.5) has become a major concern because it can adsorb chemicals e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) onto its surface. Although PAHs are priority pollutants that can cause adverse health effect, there is still limited information concerning indoor exposures to PAHs in Malaysia. This study aimed to characterise the distribution of PAHs bounded to PM2.5in primary school environments. Indoor and outdoor PM2.5 were collected between May and July 2017 using low volume samplers (LVS) at three public primary schools in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. PAHs were extracted by ultrasonic extraction with Dichloromethane: n-Hexane (1:1, v/v) as the extraction solvent and analysed using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometer (GC-MS). Based on the results, the average total concentration of PAHs (∑PAHs) ranged from 3.8 to 10.1 ng m-3and 1.6 to 8.0 ng m-3for outdoors and indoors, respectively. PAHs in PM2.5samples indicated the potential contribution of combustion at high temperature and indoor sources and the infiltration of outdoor PAHs were the important sources for outdoor and indoor, respectively. In addition, the diagnostic ratio analysis showed that vehicular emissions were the most predominant sources of PAHs in school environments.
MeSH terms: Air Pollutants; Vehicle Emissions; Environmental Pollutants; Malaysia; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; Methylene Chloride; Schools; Solvents; Temperature; Ultrasonics; Air Pollution, Indoor; Particulate Matter
A preliminary assessment of a simple and rapid electrochemical method was carried out to analyse imidacloprid (IMI) in water samples using cyclic voltammetry (CV) based on modified screen-printed gold electrode (SPGE). Self-assembled monolayer (SAM) was optimized using 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid (11-MUA) with several parameters such as scan rates, type of supporting electrolyte, and pH of the supporting electrolyte. The modified SPGE showed high suppressed current against the potential due to the formation of a monolayer on the electrode surface. Surface morphology of the electrode was analysed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) confirming that 11-MUA was present on the modified SPGE. The water samples were collected from GM Peladang, Kuala Terengganu and two locations at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. Method detection limit was expressed as limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) for modified SPGE which were calculated at 3.784 and 12.613 mg/L in water samples, respectively. This study showed that the reduction peak current observed on the modified electrode was lower compared with oxidation peak current. Hence, gold is unsuitable for IMI detection.
This study examined the relationship between body dissatisfaction and eating disorder of undergraduate students in University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT). Using stratified random sampling technique, data from 299 respondents was gathered. Body dissatisfaction was measured using Body Shape Questionnaire while eating disorders were assessed using Eating Attitudes Test. Descriptive statistics showed thatthe majority of the respondents reported no symptom of body dissatisfaction. With regard to eating disorders, respondents reported low levels of dieting, bulimia and oral control, indicating that an eating disorder in this sample was somewhat low. T-test analyses showed that there were no significant gender differences in body dissatisfaction as well as in eating disorders. However, there was evidence to suggest that female respondents had slightly higher level of eating disorder than males. Results of Pearsoncorrelations showed there was significant relationship between body dissatisfaction and total score of eating disorders, dieting, bulimia and oral control subtypes (r = .58, p
MeSH terms: Feeding and Eating Disorders; Attitude; Biometry; Bulimia; Female; Humans; Malaysia; Male; Surveys and Questionnaires; Sex Characteristics; Somatotypes; Students; Universities; Bulimia Nervosa
Studies on fungal taxonomy and fungal diversity are crucial for a better understanding of the interactions between fungi and their habitats. To date, there is no published record on macrofungal diversity in Pulau Bidong, Terengganu. Therefore, this study aimed to identify macrofungi species found with their respective substrates and to determine the macrofungal diversity in the island. The study was conducted at two different occasions and comprised of two trails near Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Research Station in Pulau Bidong, Terengganu. Collectionof fresh macrofungi was made and additional data including host information, distinctive features of each fungal sample and several environmental parameters was also recorded. Fresh specimens were later observed and identified before being dried prior to storage. Overall, 65 macrofungal species with 2 unidentified species belonging to 21 families and 34 genera were recorded. Trail A and trail B recorded diversity index of2.67 and 3.14 for Shannon Index while Simpson index recorded 0.90 and 0.94 respectively. The macrofungal diversity was dominated by family Polyporaceae while rare species discovered were from family of Tricholomataceae, Hericiaceae, Stereaceae, Schizophyllaceae, Sclerodermataceae, Dacrymycetaceae, Tremellaceae, Russulaceae and Clavulinaceae. The most common macrofungal substrates was decayed branches while other macrofungal substrates found were decayed trunks and leaves, soil,termite mounds, and living tree. In conclusion, the macrofungal species were randomlydistributed with high diversity in both trails. Therefore, it is recommended that anincrease in sampling trips, sampling efforts and areas covered be provided to increase the number of macrofungal species discovered and accuracy of diversity studies in the future.