19672 research outputs found
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Fabrication of polyaniline nanorods on electro-etched carbon cloth and its electrochemical activities as electrode materials
No full textIn this work, polyaniline (PANI) nanorods were deposited on electro-etched carbon cloth (EC) by facile electrodeposition method with the existence of purified aniline and sulfuric acid. Various deposition potentials were applied to achieve a good electrochemical performance of EC-PANI electrode. Different applied potentials resulted in different morphologies of PANI deposits and studied by field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) characterizations were used to confirm the deposition of PANI on the EC substrate. The optimized PANI nanorods electrode exhibited an excellent specific capacitance of 357.14 Fg−1 with an energy density of 40.18 Wh kg−1 and a power density of 1.28 Wkg−1 at a current density of 0.5 Ag−1 in 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte. A symmetrical cell of P1.4//PVA + 0.5 M H2SO4//P1.4 has recorded a good cycling stability with 95 and 88% capacitance retention at current densities of 200 and 300 mAg−1. EC-PANI electrode can be used as a scalable solution for high-performance energy storage devices. © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
Hormonal control of vas deferens fluid volume and aquaporin expression in rats
No full textPrecise regulation of vas deferens fluid volume which is important for sperm survival might be influenced by testosterone. In order to investigate changes in vas deferens fluid volume and aquoporins (AQP) isoforms expression under testosterone influence, orchidectomized Sprague–Dawley rats were given 125 and 250 µg/kg/day testosterone with or without flutamide, an androgen receptor blocker or finasteride, a 5alpha-reductase inhibitor for seven consecutive days. Following treatment completion, vas deferens was perfused and changes in the fluid secretion rate and osmolality were determined in the presence of acetazolamide. Rats were then sacrificed and vas deferens was harvested for histology, tissue expression and distribution analyses of AQP-1, AQP-2, AQP-5, AQP-7 and AQP-9 proteins by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry, respectively. Our findings indicate that testosterone causes vas deferens fluid secretion rate to increase, which was antagonized by acetazolamide. Fluid osmolality increased following testosterone treatment and further increased when acetazolamide was given. Co-administration of flutamide or finasteride with testosterone causing both fluid secretion rate and osmolality to decrease. Histology revealed increased size of vas deferens lumen with increased thickness of vas deferens stroma. Expression of AQP-1, AQP-2 and AQP-9 were detected in vas deferens but not AQP-5 and AQP-7, and the levels of these proteins were increased by testosterone treatment mainly at the apical membrane of vas deferens epithelium. In conclusion, increased in vas deferens fluid secretion rate under testosterone influence mediated via the up-regulation of AQP-1, 2 and 9 might be important for vas deferens fluid homeostasis in order to ensure normal male fertility. © 2018, Springer Nature B.V
Multi-Script-Oriented Text Detection and Recognition in Video/Scene/Born Digital Images
No full textAchieving good text detection and recognition results for multi-script-oriented images is a challenging task. First, we explore bit plane slicing in order to utilize the advantage of the most significant bit information to identify text components. A new iterative nearest neighbor symmetry is then proposed based on shapes of convex and concave deficiencies of text components in bit planes to identify candidate planes. Further, we introduce a new concept called mutual nearest neighbor pair components based on gradient direction to identify representative pairs of texts in each candidate bit plane. The representative pairs are used to restore words with the help of edge image of the input one, which results in text detection results (words). Second, we propose a new idea by fixing window for character components of arbitrary oriented words based on angular relationship between sub-bands and a fused band. For each window, we extract features in contourlet wavelet domain to detect characters with the help of an SVM classifier. Further, we propose to explore HMM for recognizing characters and words of any orientation using the same feature vector. The proposed method is evaluated on standard databases such as ICDAR, YVT video, ICDAR, SVT, MSRA scene data, ICDAR born digital data, and multi-lingual data to show its superiority to the state of the art methods. © 1991-2012 IEEE
LocPass: A Graphical Password Method to Prevent Shoulder-Surfing
No full textGraphical passwords are a method of authentication in computer security. Computer security is one of the disciplines of computer science. Shoulder-surfing attacks are a well-known threat to graphical passwords, although is getting commonly used especially in granting access for a secure system. Shoulder-surfing occurs when attackers skillfully capture important data/activities, such as login passwords, via direct observation or video recording methods. Many methods have been proposed to overcome the problem of shoulder-surfing attacks. After we reviewed some related works, we found out that most of the existing methods are still vulnerable to multiple observations and video-recorded shoulder-surfing attacks. Thus, we propose a new method to combat this problem. In our proposed method, we make used of two concepts to combat shoulder-surfing attacks. In the first concept, we used registered locations (something that only the users know) and 5 image directions (something that the users can see) to determine a pass-location (new knowledge). Secondly, the images used in our proposed method have higher chances to offset each other. The idea of offset could increase the password spaces of our proposed method if an attacker intended to guess the registered location used. By combining these two concepts, the pass-location produced by our proposed method in each challenge set could be varied. Therefore, it is impossible for the attackers to shoulder-surf any useful information such as the images/locations clicked by the user in each challenge set. A user study was conducted to evaluate the capabilities of the proposed method to prevent shoulder-surfing attacks. The shoulder-surfing testing results indicated that none of the participants were able to login, although they knew the underlying algorithm and they have been given sufficient time to perform a shoulder-surfing attack. Therefore, the proposed method has proven it can prevent shoulder-surfing attacks, provided the enrolment procedure is carried out in a secure manner. © 2019 by the authors
Does positive organisational behaviour and career commitment lead to work happiness
No full textThis study aims to identify if positive organisational behaviour (POB) and career commitment affect work happiness. Assessment on these two factors were conducted via structural equation modelling. A cross-sectional study comprising 393 ICT professionals working in Malaysia was conducted through a questionnaire survey that was based on the seven-point Likert scale. The research model used was guided by the broaden-and-build theory and the self-determination theory. AMOS version 21 was used for the analyses. Findings indicate that POB has positive relationships with work happiness but career commitment has no significant relationship with work happiness. There was evidence to support that individuals who were positive in nature were more likely to feel happy with their work. There was also evidence to reject the notion that a committed worker was a happy worker. These findings have practical implications on the management and the development of an emerging workforce. Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Effect of lecturer’s transformational leadership on students’ employability: Malaysian technical and vocational education & training institutions
No full textAs the economy of Malaysian government has transformed from a typical economy to human capital economy, the demand for Technical and Vocational Education & Training (TVET) institutions as a platform to develop human capital is also increasing. TVET based institutions in Malaysia are known as formal and informal learning sector which provide youthful people with the expertise and skills needed in the work sector. However, TVET-based qualifications and careers in Malaysia are perceived poorly and does not receive recognition in the workplace in terms of employability. These institutions cannot achieve their predetermined goals without effective leadership as the success and failure of the objectives depend on lecturers. Over the last three decades, transformational leadership has achieved legitimacy that has been showed to be an effective and influential enabler especially in developing employees’ attitudes and behaviours. Thus, the aim of present research is determining the role of lecturer’s transformational leadership in effecting students’ employability. This study was conducted in ten (10) Technical and Vocational Education & Training (TVET) institutions located at Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. A total of 350 final year students were involved in this research which used the quantitative research design approach. Pearson correlations, linear regression and multiple regressions analysis were used to analyse the collected data. The findings indicated that lecturer’s transformational leadership significantly and positively correlated with students’ employability. In addition, the result also indicated that students’ employability can be affected by role of lecturer’s transformational leadership style. Based on the findings, it is indicated that lecturers must display an effective inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation which will then stimulate employability development among students especially in TVET institutions. © 2019, University of Malaya. All rights reserved
Analysis of Travellers’ Online Reviews in Social Networking Sites Using Fuzzy Logic Approach
No full textSocial media and digital technology have had significant contributions and impacts on the hospitality and accommodation businesses. Online traveller reviews have been rich sources of information for the traveller’s decision-making process in social media websites. TripAdvisor, a popular travel review site and social media platform, is mainly developed as a free business consultation service to help the travellers to make right decisions in their trips. The aim of this research is to use the multi-criteria ratings provided by the travellers in social media networking sites for developing a new recommender system for hotel recommendations in e-tourism platforms. We extend the crisp-based multi-criteria algorithms to fuzzy-based multi-criteria algorithms for finding the similarities between the travellers based on their provided ratings. To develop the recommendation method, we use clustering and prediction machine learning techniques. We evaluate the recommendation system on TripAdvisor data. Our experiments confirm that the use of clustering and prediction machine learning with the aid of fuzzy-based recommendation algorithms can significantly improve the quality of recommendations in tourism domain. © 2019, Taiwan Fuzzy Systems Association
Language learners’ mental images of Korea: insights for the teaching of culture in the language classroom
No full textPeople who learn a foreign language hold various mental images about the target language country, its culture and society. These images are recognised as a valuable source of information for developing the cultural component of a foreign language programme. However, explorations of mental images of Korea held by students enrolled in Korean language programmes are scarce. The current study addresses this gap. It explores images of Korea held by students learning Korean in a major public university in Malaysia. The country images that the students have were then assessed for prominence and favourability. It was found that the images of Korea were overwhelmingly positive and the most prominent of them pertained to Korea’s popular culture and cultural products. At the same time the findings revealed the need for a deeper knowledge of the target culture. Pedagogical implications concerning the development of the cultural component of the Korean language programme are discussed. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Public policy interventions for grassroots innovations: are we getting it right?
No full textThis paper examines the socio-technical elements of Grassroots Innovations (GRIs) cases in Malaysia and draws lessons for public policy intervention by accounting for the contextual nature of the GRIs. Our findings on the four successful Malaysian rural GRIs indicate the following. First, carefully formulated level-specific policy instruments are needed to facilitate the smooth transition of the various stages of GRIs. Second, given the heterogeneity nature of GRIs, policymakers should avoid generalized, oversimplified and one-fit policy approaches. In turn, public policy intervention should be flexible and clearly suited to the aspiration of the founders and their missions. More importantly, attempts to commercialize, similar to the business-oriented innovation policy and in the name of creating value defeats the purpose of GRIs thus jeopardizing the true value of GRIs. Instead, the evidences suggest that strengthening the stakeholder-innovator partnership in co-developing and co-delivering adds value to the grassroots innovators and society at large. It also has larger benefits of application in providing greater social benefits especially in solving communal problems. © 2019, © KOSIME, ASIALICS, STEPI 2019
Physical, optical and electrical studies on hybrid Ag NPs/NiSi NWs electrode as a DNA template for biosensor
No full textBy means of Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), Nickel silicide nanowires (NiSi NWs) were grown on silica substrate followed by a solid-diffusion controlled growth mechanism at different substrate temperatures ranging from 400 to 520 °C. The NWs were then subsequently decorated with Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs) via a simple thermal evaporation technique. The morphologies of the NiSi NWs and Ag NPs/NiSi NWs showed noticeable dependence on the growth substrate temperatures. NiSi NWs grown at 470 °C exhibited the highest NW density with a uniform decoration of spherical Ag NPs of ∼13.7 ± 1.5 nm of diameter. The Ag NPs/NiSi NWs appeared to exhibit a better crystallinity compared to the as-grown NiSi NWs, which could be attributed to metal induced crystallization. Moreover, the decoration of Ag NPs on NiSi NWs showed a significant enhancement in Raman peak intensities mainly in the Ni2Si, NiSi, and NiSi2 phases. The Ag NPs/NiSi NWs demonstrated a well-defined surface plasmon resonance absorption bands centered at around 420 nm, which elucidate the effectiveness of the decoration of Ag NPs on NiSi NW surfaces with a thin amorphous dielectric barrier layer. Using current-voltage (I-V) measurement, Ag NPs/NiSi NWs and NiSi NWs shown to exhibit a surface type Schottky diode with rectifying behavior. The values of ideality factor for the NiSi NWs and Ag NPs/NiSi NWs Schottky diodes were calculated to be 6.992 and 2.559 respectively. Additionally, the values of series resistances were also calculated , where the series resistance obtained are 91.856 and 38.697 kΩ for NiSi NWs and Ag NPs/NiSi NWs DNA electrodes, respectively. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd