Salah satu dari strategi untuk memperkasakan petugas kesihatan di dalam menentang kesan pandemik COVID-19 ini adalah melalui latihan yang berkesan. Keselamatan dan ketidak laziman merupakan dua perkara pokok yang menyebabkan modul ini dihasilkan. Modul latihan ini dibentuk berdasarkan tiga strategi utama iaitu belajar dari pengalaman lalu, mereka-bentuk modul latihan yang khusus, dan mengenal kelemahan yang ada. Modul yang dihasilkan ialah pemakaian-penanggalan alat perlindungan kendiri (PPE), pengurusan salur pernafasan dan resusitasi kardiopulmonari bagi pesakit yang disyaki COVID-19. Seramai 178 Perawat Kesihatan Barisan Hadapan (PKBH) telah dilatih. Setiap modul disertakan dengan senarai-semak yang mana peserta merasakan ianya sangat membantu. Tiada peserta yang jatuh sakit atau mengalami simptom setelah lebih dua minggu tamat latihan dan ini berkemungkinan hasil dari pelaksanan senarai semak persediaan pra-latihan yang ketat. Senarai semak pra-latihan ini mempunyai tujuh perkara penting iaitu ruang latihan, bilangan peserta, saringan COVID-19, pemeriksaan suhu badan, sanitasi tangan, PPE, dan pensanitasi peralatan sebelum dan selepas latihan. Latihan menggunakan senarai semak yang terarah didapati sangat membantu para petugas di dalam menguruskan situasi COVID-19. Kesimpulannya semasa menghadapai keadaan yang di luar kelaziman serta masa dan sumber yang terhad, latihan praktikal bersama senarai semak merupakan satu kaedah yang dapat membantu. Mengikuti langkah keselamatan pra-latihan yang betul juga boleh mengurangkan penyebaran penyakit ini.
This paper aims to explore the level of manufacturing performance, environmental
actions and customer activities in implementing green supply chain initiatives. Besides,
the relationship between environmental actions and customer activities towards
manufacturing performance also been investigated. For this purposes, the data was
collected using questionnaire-based survey among Malaysian manufacturing firms.
Using the descriptive and correlation test, the data was analyzed. From the results, it
is showing that the manufacturing performance through the implementation of green
supply chain management has a positive relationship to environmental action and
customer activities.
Previous work has shown that exposure to images of nature results in elevated state body appreciation, but static images may lack ecological validity. Here, we examined the impact of exposure to short films of simulated, first-person walks in natural or built environments. Thirty-six university students completed a measure of state body appreciation before and after watching films of either a walk in a natural or a built environment created specifically for the present study. Two weeks later, they completed the same task but watched the other film type. Results indicated that exposure to the film of a natural environment resulted in significantly elevated state body appreciation (d = 0.66). There was no significant change in state body appreciation following exposure to the film of the built environment (d = 0.14). These findings suggest that exposure to films depicting the natural environment may promote immediate, moderate-sized improvements in state body image.
In 2013, the Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) was developed by the Ministry of Education to guide the transformation process of the education system in this country for the next decade, starting from 2015 (1). The blueprint highlighted core aspirations for Malaysian higher education, which includes rapid expansion of research output and quality (1). This effort is in line with the nation's aspiration to uplift the standard of service provision among healthcare professionals, whose practice should advance on the essence of high quality scientific evidence.(Copied from article)
Time stepping algorithm with spatial parallelisation is commonly used to solve time dependent partial differential equations. Computation in each time step is carried out using all processors available before sequentially advancing to the next time step. In cases where few spatial components are involved and there are relatively many processors available for use, this will result in fine granularity and decreased scalability. Naturally one alternative is to parallelise the temporal domain. Several time parallelisation algorithms have been suggested for the past two decades. One of them is the pipelined iterations across time steps. In this pipelined time stepping method, communication however is extensive between time steps during the pipelining process. This causes a decrease in performance on distributed memory environment which often has high message latency. We present a modified pipelined time stepping algorithm based on delayed pipelining and reduced communication strategies to improve overall execution time on a distributed memory environment using MPI. Our goal is to reduce the inter-time step communications while providing adequate information for the next time step to converge. Numerical result confirms that the improved algorithm is faster than the original pipelined algorithm and sequential time stepping algorithm with spatial parallelisation alone. The improved algorithm is most beneficial for fine granularity time dependent problems with limited spatial parallelisation.
Science has been defined as 'a way of knowing' which is, in certain respects, unlike other ways of knowing. While some forms of knowledge are highly personal and intuitive, the methods of science are designed to be as objective and impersonal as possible. Science has been referred to as 'public knowledge' because of its procedures for verification involve the whole of society. Science is also 'organised knowledge' because it is systematic and because it is supported by a group of social institutions without which it could not exist in its modern form. For many decades, Fensham, an internationally recognised science educator, has been one of the most important and consistent voices for the reform of science education based on his vision of a democratic and socially responsible science education for all, based on the fundamental premise that if society is to understand the world it must be educated in the principles of science upon which a sustainable world is premised. Thus, science has a real place in society and a social responsibility. From a chemistry perspective, this enabling science is perceived by society as irrelevant to the real world and the cause of many of the evils of the world. This paper addresses the pivotal role of chemistry both in science education and in the social responsibility of science campaign and simultaneously shows how chemistry is at the leading edge of sustainable science in both a scientific and social context.
Sains telah ditakrifkan sebagai 'suatu cara mengetahui'. Dalam ertikata tertentu, takrif ini berlainan dengan cara-cara mengetahui hal-hal lain. Sesetengah bentuk pengetahuan sangatlah tersendiri dan intuitif, namun kaedah sains direkabentuk sedemikian sehingga sejauh mungkin ia berobjektif dan tidak tersendiri. Sains telah dirujukkan sebagai 'pengetahuan awam' kerana prosedur pensahihannya melibatkan seluruh masyarakat. Sains juga merupakan 'pengetahuan yang tersusun' kerana ini bersistem dan kerana ia disokong oleh kumpulan institusi sosial. Tanpa sokongan ini sains tidak boleh wujud dalam bentuk modemnya. Selama beberapa dekad yang lalu, Fensham, seorang ahli pendidikan sains yang diiktiraf antarabangsa, merupakan seorang penggiat yang penting dan konsisten dalam menyuarakan pendapat ke arah perubahan pendidikan sains berdasarkan visinya, iaitu pendidikan sains untuk semua secara demokratik dan bertanggungjawab kepada masyarakat, berlandaskan kepada premis asas bahawa jika masyarakat hendak memahami dunia, maka ia mestilah dididik dalam prinsip-prinsip sains dengan prinsip-prinsip itu sendiri dijadikan premos bagi sebuah dunia mampan. Dengan demikian, sains mempunyai tempatnya yang sebenar dalam masyarakat dan mempunyai tanggungjawab kemasyarakatan. Dari perspektif kimia, masyarakat bertanggapan bahawa sains tersebut tidaklah relevan dalam dunia nyata dan merupakan penyebab kepada banyak keburukan dalam dunia ini. Kertas ini mengupas peranan pengimbangan bidang kimia dalam pendidikan sains dan dalam tanggungjawab sosial kempen sains dan sekali gus menunjukkan bahawa kimia adalah teraju bagi sains mampan dalam kedua-dua konteks sainstifik dan sosial.
The development of economy is closely related with the inflation rate of the country. Generally the inflation can be measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPl). The aim of this paper is using overlapping measure and cumulative measure to measure the inflation. In overall, these two methods are adequate for measuring the inflation. As a result, monthly measure is useful because it believe can give a perfect measure (since its sample is large) and can get rid of or smaller the error. Besides that, the value of the weighted CPl and the unweighted CPl are almost same. As the result, the unweighted of CPl is used to measure the inflation. The result of this two methods are satisfactory.
[Perkembangan sesuatu ekonomi adalah berkait rapat dengan kadar inflasi dalam sesebuah negara. Secara amnya, inflasi dapat diukur dengan Indeks Harga Pengguna (IHP). Tujuan kertas kerja ini adalah mengukur inflasi dengan menggunakan kaedah data bertindih dan kaedah kumulatif. Pada keseluruhannya kedua-dua kaedah tersebut adalah sesuai digunakan sebagai pengukuran inflasi. Oleh hal yang demikian, pengukuran secara bulanan digunakan kerana dipercayai bahawa ia dapat memberi ukuran yang lebih tepat (saiz sampel yang besar) dan dapat mengelakkan atau mengecilkan ralat berlaku. Selain itu, penggunaan IHP berpemberat dan IHP tanpa pemberat didapati mempunyai nilai yang hampir sama. Oleh itu, nilai IHP tanpa pemberat digunakan dalam pengukuran inflasi. Keputusan yang didapati daripada kedua-dua kaedah tersebut adalah memuaskan]
Oil palm biomass is widely known for its potential as a renewable resource for various value-added products due to its lignocellulosic content and availability. Oil palm biomass biorefinery is an industry that comes with sociopolitical benefits through job opportunities, as well as potential environmental benefits. Many studies have been conducted on the technological advancements of oil-palm biomass-derived renewable materials, which are discussed comprehensively in this review. Recent technological developments have made it possible to bring new and innovative technologies to commercialization, such as compost, biocharcoal, biocomposites, and bioplastics.
This investigation was carried out to explore G × E interaction for yield and its associated attributes in 30 Bambara groundnut genotypes across four environments in tropical Malaysia. Such evaluations are essential when the breeding program's objective is to choose genotypes with broad adaption and yield potential. Studies of trait relationships, variance components, mean performance, and genetic linkage are needed by breeders when designing, evaluating, and developing selection criteria for improving desired characteristics in breeding programs. The evaluation of breeding lines of Bambara groundnut for high yield across a wide range of environments is important for long-term production and food security. Each site's experiment employed a randomized complete block design with three replicates. Data on vegetative and yield component attributes were recorded. The analysis of variance revealed that there were highly significant (p ≤ 0.01) differences among the 30 genotypes for all variables evaluated. A highly significant and positive correlation was identified between yield per hectare and dry seed weight (0.940), hundred seed weight (0.844), fresh pod weight (0.832), and total pod weight (0.750); the estimated correlation between dry weight of pods and seed yield was 1.0. The environment was more important than genotype and G × E in determining yield and yield components.A total of 49% variation is covered by PC1 (33.9%) and PC2 (15.1%) and the genotypes formed five distinct clusters based on Ward hierarchical clustering (WHC) method. The genotypes S5G1, S5G3, S5G5, S5G6, S5G8, S5G7, S5G2, S5G4, S5G10, S5G13, S5G11, and S5G14 of clusters I, II, and III were closest to the ideal genotype with superior yield across the environments. The PCA variable loadings revealed that an index based on dry pod weight, hundred seed weight, number of total pods and fresh pod weight could be used as a selection criteria to improve seed yield of Bambara groundnut.
The study is aimed at investigating the impact of waste management in the context of Industry 4.0 and sustainable development. Data were collected from 257 production managers in the industrial sector using a survey questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS and PLS-SEM. The findings indicated that Industry 4.0 and waste management significantly contribute to achieving sustainable development. The integration of Industry 4.0 technologies and effective waste management practices can help organizations implement sustainable development goals. Practical implications include assisting organizations in implementing Industry 4.0 technologies and waste management strategies based on the 3Rs principle. This can lead to reduced environmental impacts and improved resource efficiency, contributing to sustainable development. Policymakers can also benefit from the study's insights to address waste management challenges and promote sustainable development. The study's originality lies in its incorporation of the cyber-physical system and niche theory to explore how Industry 4.0 can facilitate sustainable waste management. It highlights the transformative potential of Industry 4.0 in the industrial sector, particularly in developing countries. Overall, this research offers a unique contribution to understanding waste management within the context of Industry 4.0 and sustainable development.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals that have been widely utilized in various industries since the 1940s, and have now emerged as environmental contaminants. In recent years, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) have been restricted and replaced with several alternatives. The high persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity of these substances have contributed to their emergence as environmental contaminants, and several aspects of their behavior remain largely unknown and require further investigation. The trace level of PFAS makes the development of a monitoring database challenging. Additionally, the potential health issues associated with PFAS are not yet fully understood due to ongoing research and inadequate evidence (experimental and epidemiological studies), especially with regard to the combined effects of exposure to PFAS mixtures and human health risks from drinking water consumption. This in-depth review offers unprecedented insights into the exposure pathways and toxicological impacts of PFAS, addressing critical knowledge gaps in their behaviors and health implications. It presents a comprehensive NABC-Needs, Approach, Benefits, and Challenges-analysis to guide future strategies for the sustainable monitoring and management of these pervasive environmental contaminants.
The diversity of beetle assemblages in different habitat types (primary forest, logged forest, acacia plantation and oil palm plantation) in Sabah, Malaysia was investigated using three different methods based on habitat levels (Winkler sampling, flight-interception-trapping and mist-blowing). The overall diversity was extremely high, with 1711 species recorded from only 8028 individuals and 81 families (115 family and subfamily groups). Different degrees of environmental changes had varying effects on the beetle species richness and abundance, with oil palm plantation assemblage being most severely affected, followed by acacia plantation and then logged forest. A few species became numerically dominant in the oil palm plantation. In terms of beetle species composition, the acacia fauna showed much similarity with the logged forest fauna, and the oil palm fauna was very different from the rest. The effects of environmental variables (number of plant species, sapling and tree densities, amount of leaf litter, ground cover, canopy cover, soil pH and compaction) on the beetle assemblage were also investigated. Leaf litter correlated with species richness, abundance and composition of subterranean beetles. Plant species richness, tree and sapling densities correlated with species richness, abundance and composition of understorey beetles while ground cover correlated only with the species richness and abundance of these beetles. Canopy cover correlated only with arboreal beetles. In trophic structure, predators represented more than 40% of the species and individuals. Environmental changes affected the trophic structure with proportionally more herbivores (abundance) but fewer predators (species richness and abundance) in the oil palm plantation. Biodiversity, conservation and practical aspects of pest management were also highlighted in this study.
Great apes are threatened with extinction, but precise information about the distribution and size of most populations is currently lacking. We conducted orangutan nest counts in the Malaysian state of Sabah (North Borneo), using a combination of ground and helicopter surveys, and provided a way to estimate the current distribution and size of the populations living throughout the entire state. We show that the number of nests detected during aerial surveys is directly related to the estimated true animal density and that a helicopter is an efficient tool to provide robust estimates of orangutan numbers. Our results reveal that with a total estimated population size of about 11,000 individuals, Sabah is one of the main strongholds for orangutans in North Borneo. More than 60% of orangutans living in the state occur outside protected areas, in production forests that have been through several rounds of logging extraction and are still exploited for timber. The role of exploited forests clearly merits further investigation for orangutan conservation in Sabah.
There has been a growing concern on the rising of environmental issues in Malaysia over the last decade. Many environmental studies conducted in this country began to utilise the chemometrics techniques to overcome the limitation in the environmental monitoring studies. Chemometrics becomes an important tool in environmental fields to evaluate the relationship of various environmental variables particularly in a large and complex database. The review aimed to analyse and summarize the current evidences and limitations on the application of chemometrics techniques in the environmental studies in Malaysia. The study performed a comprehensive review of relevant scientific journals concerning on the major environmental issues in the country, published between 2013 and 2017. A total of 29 papers which focused on the environmental issues were reviewed. Available evidences suggested that chemometrics techniques have a greater accuracy, flexibility and efficiency to be applied in environmental modelling. It also reported that chemometrics techniques are more practical for cost effective and time management in sampling and monitoring purposes. However, chemometrics is relatively new in environmental field in Malaysia and various scopes need to be considered in the future as the current studies focused on very limited number of major environmental issues. Overall, chemometrics techniques have a lot of advantages in solving environmental problems. The development of chemometrics in environmental studies in the country is necessary to advance understanding, thus able to produce more significant impacts towards the effective environmental management.
Decision-makers require useful tools, such as indicators, to help them make environmentally sound decisions leading to effective management of hazardous wastes. Four hazardous waste indicators are being tested for such a purpose by several countries within the Sustainable Development Indicator Programme of the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development. However, these indicators only address the 'down-stream' end-of-pipe industrial situation. More creative thinking is clearly needed to develop a wider range of indicators that not only reflects all aspects of industrial production that generates hazardous waste but considers socio-economic implications of the waste as well. Sets of useful and innovative indicators are proposed that could be applied to the emerging paradigm shift away from conventional end-of-pipe management actions and towards preventive strategies that are being increasingly adopted by industry often in association with local and national governments. A methodological and conceptual framework for the development of a core-set of hazardous waste indicators has been developed. Some of the indicator sets outlined quantify preventive waste management strategies (including indicators for cleaner production, hazardous waste reduction/minimization and life cycle analysis), whilst other sets address proactive strategies (including changes in production and consumption patterns, eco-efficiency, eco-intensity and resource productivity). Indicators for quantifying transport of hazardous wastes are also described. It was concluded that a number of the indicators proposed could now be usefully implemented as management tools using existing industrial and economic data. As cleaner production technologies and waste minimization approaches are more widely deployed, and industry integrates environmental concerns at all levels of decision-making, it is expected that the necessary data for construction of the remaining indicators will soon become available.
The main objective of this study is to examine the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis by utilizing the ecological footprint as an environment indicator and GDP from tourism as the economic indicator. To achieve this goal, an environmental degradation model is established during the period of 1988-2008 for 144 countries. The results from the time series generalized method of moments (GMM) and the system panel GMM revealed that the number of countries that have a negative relationship between the ecological footprint and its determinants (GDP growth from tourism, energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization) is more existent in the upper middle- and high-income countries. Moreover, the EKC hypothesis is more present in the upper middle- and high-income countries than the other income countries. From the outcome of this research, a number of policy recommendations were provided for the investigated countries.
Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species1,2. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies3,4. Here, leveraging global tree databases5-7, we explore how the phylogenetic and functional diversity of native tree communities, human pressure and the environment influence the establishment of non-native tree species and the subsequent invasion severity. We find that anthropogenic factors are key to predicting whether a location is invaded, but that invasion severity is underpinned by native diversity, with higher diversity predicting lower invasion severity. Temperature and precipitation emerge as strong predictors of invasion strategy, with non-native species invading successfully when they are similar to the native community in cold or dry extremes. Yet, despite the influence of these ecological forces in determining invasion strategy, we find evidence that these patterns can be obscured by human activity, with lower ecological signal in areas with higher proximity to shipping ports. Our global perspective of non-native tree invasion highlights that human drivers influence non-native tree presence, and that native phylogenetic and functional diversity have a critical role in the establishment and spread of subsequent invasions.
Although many benefits of urban green space networks have been consistently demonstrated, most of the discussion on space connectivity has concentrated on ecological aspects, such as patch-corridor-matrix connectivity. There are limited systematic studies that have investigated the connectedness between urban parks and people. This study aimed to explore the connectedness among urban parks from the users' perspective by using a systematic literature review. By following the PRISMA protocol and analyzing 54 studies from Scopus and Web of Science between 2017 and 2022, we proposed the concepts of physical connectedness and perceived connectedness. The "physical connectedness" contained the dimensions of road attributes and park attributes, as well as six categories including physical accessibility, street connectivity, the street environment, spatial scale, facilities and amenities, and natural elements. The "perceived connectedness" mainly referred to people's perception of the physical environment. The four categories were perceived accessibility, perceived safety, aesthetics, and Kaplan's perceptual model. Finally, in terms of individual attributes, the impact of sociodemographic factors (age, gender, income, education, and occupation) and the motivation for activity on park connectedness were also taken into account. On the basis of our findings, this study suggested that park connectedness should not only focus on physical connectedness but also perceived connectedness.
China's internal migrants suffer from marginalised housing conditions, poor neighbourhood environments and residential segregation, which may have significant implications on health and well-being. Echoing recent calls for interdisciplinary research on migrant health and well-being, this study examines the associations and mechanisms of the impact of the residential environment on the health and well-being of Chinese migrants. We found that most of the relevant studies supported the "healthy migration effect", but the phenomenon was only applicable to migrants' self-reported physical health rather than mental health. The subjective well-being of migrants is lower than that of urban migrants. There is a debate between the effectiveness of residential environmental improvements and the ineffectiveness of residential environmental improvements in terms of the impact of the neighbourhood environment on migrants' health and well-being. Housing conditions and the neighbourhood's physical and social environment can enhance migrants' health and well-being by strengthening place attachment and social cohesion, building localised social capital and gaining neighbourhood social support. Residential segregation on the neighbourhood scale affects the health outcomes of migrant populations through the mechanism of relative deprivation. Our studies build a vivid and comprehensive picture of research to understand migration, urban life and health and well-being.
Matched MeSH terms: Environment; Social Environment