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Firm characteristics, capabilities and productivities: A study of Malaysian food manufacturing sector / Lim Tien Hong
No full textThis research establishes and examines a set of firm productivity measures for the Malaysian food manufacturing industry. The research further examines the differences in productivity based on the firm’s characteristics and consequently examines the empirical relationship between firm capabilities namely marketing, ICT, R&D and human capital on labour productivity. The research uses cross sectional data comprising 1020 firms. Various methods were used in the research. Non-parametric analysis was undertaken to compare the productivity levels across firm characteristics while in examining the impact of capabilities on labour productivity the research uses quantile regression analysis. The finding shows that productivity differs based on firm legal status and size of enterprises only influence capital and labour productivities. Meanwhile, energy and material productivities differ mostly across industry types. Firm’s ownership only influences labour productivity of food manufacturing. The results of the quantile regressions are as follows. The findings showed that size becomes less relevant at the higher tail of the quantile and as capabilities and human capital grows, productivity gains are much higher. The findings are robust to different measures of human capital and capabilities. Interestingly, among the capabilities, innovation matters the most in driving labour productivity. ICT capability, on the other hand, matters for firm in the lower quantile suggesting that investment in only several common technologies such as computers and information technology platforms will not be adequate once firms are in the higher quantile of the productivity. As for marketing capability, it shows that market creating capability of the firms enhances productivity. Nevertheless, the coefficient does not vary across the lower and upper productivity quantile. The study concludes with implications for driving labour productivity across capabilities through policy recommendations to raise human capital and improve ICT infrastructure and working conditions
The mediation of self-efficacy between Antecedents and organisational citizenship Behaviour in the public sector / Meor Rashydan Abdullah
No full textOrganisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) has become popular among scholars in organisational behaviour, psychology, and management studies since it significantly contributes to the success of an organisation. Organisational citizenship behaviour plays an important role in organisational settings for its effectiveness and the efficiency of the services or operation provided. Empirical studies on OCB in recent years were mostly conducted in a Western context. However, there is a limit of providing extensive information and in-depth understanding of employee’s citizenship behaviour in Malaysia settings. This study attempts to narrow the gap in the past literature. In the public sector, OCB is highly valued and critical in enhancing the performance of a government organisation. Organisational citizenship behaviour plays a significant role by encouraging employees to respond effectively to the changing environment and at the same time be able to deliver high-quality services. However, there is little empirical research on OCB in the public sector and the applicability of the resource perspective from the theory of conservation of resource in measuring employee’s citizenship behaviour. This study utilises the conservation of resource theory in an effort to provide evidence on the effect of individual and organisational factors towards employees’ citizenship behaviours thus extending the application of conservation of resource (COR) theory on the effect of personal resource as a mediator. Specifically, this study looks at individual factors such as distinguished work-family conflict (work-FC) and family-work conflict (family-WC) and an organisational factor such as supervisory support as independent variables that may have an effect on citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, this study attempts to investigate the role of self-efficacy as a mediating variable on those relationships. Using a survey data of 618 public administrators from four government organisations located in Putrajaya, Malaysia, the conservation of resource theory was tested using statistical analysis SPSS and Structural Equation Modelling - Partial Least Square (Version 3.0). It was found that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between supervisory support and OCB as well as between family-WC and OCB. In contrast, self-efficacy does not mediate the relationship between work-FC and OCB. The findings illustrate the effect of selfefficacy as a personal resource that contributes to the resource’s loss and resource gain, which influence employees’ citizenship behaviour. In addition, self-efficacy and supervisory support were found to be a notable predictor of citizenship behaviour, a finding that corresponds to the past studies which denote that individual self-belief and supportive supervisory within an organisation is a predictor of individual citizenship behaviour. The results suggest that an organisation should focus on developing individual characteristics to foster self-belief and to promote a supportive working environment, the purpose being to enhance employees’ engagement in the organisation. The findings of this study can supplement the existing literature and open new avenues for future research
In vitro anti-oxidation, anti-hepatic steatotic and anti-inflammatory effects of Auricularia nigricans (SYN A. polytricha) / Teoh Hoe Leong
No full textAt present, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most frequent liver diseases worldwide. In general, NAFLD is asymptomatic, and can slowly progress to serious complications such as cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, cardiovascular disease and death. Although there are no approved treatment regimens for NAFLD at this moment, lifestyle modifications through diet is the mainstay of treatment. Auricularia nigricans is a popular edible mushroom known to possess medicinal properties such as antioxidant, antitumor and anti-inflammatory. The present study was conducted to determine the beneficial effects of A. nigricans against NAFLD through investigation of the in vitro free radical scavenging activities, anti-inflammatory capacity, hypolipidemic effect and mechanism triggered by bioactive fractionated samples from A. nigricans towards palmitic acid-induced HepG2 cells. Evaluation of total phenolic content in ethanolic crude, hexane, ethyl acetate and water fractions from A. nigricans indicated that ethyl acetate fraction was found significantly higher than other fractions (p<0.05). Furthermore, ethyl acetate fraction showed the strongest scavenging peroxyl, hydroxyl, DPPH radicals effects. In addition, ethyl acetate fraction also demonstrated significant high capacity in ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP). Among all, water fraction was the only fraction capable of scavenging all radicals tested. Therefore, ethyl acetate and water fraction were subjected to gas chromatography mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis for assessing the bioactive compounds profile. Linoleic acid ethyl ester, Butyl 9,12-octadecadienoate, 9,12-Octadecadienoic acid, Ergosta-5,7,22-trien-3-ol, 2(3,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)-7-hydroxy-5-benzene propanoic acid and 3,30-di-O-methyl ellagic acid were identified in the ethyl acetate fraction, while oxooctadecanoic acid and 2(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-7-hydroxy-5-benzenepropanoic acid were identified in the water fraction. 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay showed that water fraction was non-cytotoxic to HepG2 cells, whereas ethyl acetate fraction was cytotoxic to HepG2 cells at 100 μg/mL. Assay on anti-hepatic steatotic, ethyl acetate fraction showed significant inhibitory effects on lipid accumulation (p<0.05), but not water fraction. Furthermore, ethyl acetate fraction exhibited significant capacity (p<0.05) in attenuating intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, but not water fraction. Hence, the anti-inflammatory effect of ethyl acetate fraction was investigated. Co-incubation of 25 and 50 μg/mL ethyl acetate fraction with palmitic acid, markedly decreases tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), intereukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) levels. Both concentrations also showed no significant different in the reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokine levels. Further investigation of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects at signalling pathway using palmitic acid-induced HepG2 cells co-incubated with 25 μg/mL ethyl acetate fraction showed suppression of stress-activated protein kinases/jun amino-terminal regulated kinases (SAPK/JNK), p-38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (p-38 MAPK), nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT-3) signalling pathways. In conclusion, the present findings suggest that A. nigricans demonstrated anti-steatotic effects that involved antioxidant capacity, hypolipidemic effect and anti-inflammatory capacity in the palmitic acid-induced NAFLD pathological cell model. Combined together, ethyl acetate fraction shows potential to be used in the development of anti-hepatic steatotic agent and A. nigricans may be considered to be promoted to be used in diet intervention for NAFLD and NASH patients.
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Distribution of healthcare resources in Peninsular Malaysia : An examination of equity with respect to geography and allocative processes / Gan Saw Chien
No full textOn a country’s pathway to Universal Health Coverage, it is important to ensure
equitable healthcare provision and financing. There was a lack of evidence in equity of
healthcare provision and financing across geographic areas in Peninsular Malaysia. This
was despite the evidence that geographic factors directly and indirectly affect population
health and healthcare services are mostly delivered at immobile healthcare facilities. In
Malaysia’s mixed public-private healthcare system, Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH)
has a geographically comprehensive provision network and the MOH resources are
distributed through geographic-bound MOH administrative structures. The private sector,
which concentrated on more affluent geographic areas, also plays a significant role in
providing healthcare services in Peninsular Malaysia. Hence, this study was set out to
assess the geographic healthcare equity across states in Peninsular Malaysia. It was, more
specifically, to directly assess if the healthcare provision was provided according to
healthcare needs across states in Peninsular Malaysia (i.e. horizontal equity in provision),
and indirectly assess if the healthcare financing was pro-poorer states in Peninsular
Malaysia (i.e. vertical equity in financing). This study also aimed to identify ways to
improve the fairness of the healthcare allocative process and equity of healthcare
resources distribution. Using regularly collected death registry and survey data from
Department of Statistics and MOH, a novel approach, based on the concepts of Lorenz
curve, Gini index, concentration curve and concentration index, were adopted to assess
the horizontal and vertical geographic equity across states in Peninsular Malaysia in 1997
and 2012. Qualitative inquiry was also carried out to understand the factors influencing
the allocation and to determine the fairness of the allocative processes. MOH decision
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makers from various levels were interviewed. Using the Accountability for
Reasonableness framework, a framework of four conditions (i.e. relevance, publicity,
revision and regulation) for ensuring fairness of the allocative process, as a benchmark,
MOH’s success in the allocative process was evaluated. In general, quantitative analysis
found that the distributions of overall financial expenditure for hospital care, number of
acute beds for hospital care and financial expenditure of primary care in 1997 and 2012
were in line with the principle of horizontal equity in provision. Also, the distributions of
MOH primary care financial resources and hospital acute beds were in line with the
principle of vertical geographic equity in financing. Nevertheless, no concentrations of
MOH hospital financial expenditure in wealthier sates were found. The qualitative inquiry
confirmed that the MOH allocative process was geography-based. The operating budget
allocation was historical, incremental and often dictated by previous development budget
allocation across geographic areas. Evaluation of MOH’s allocative process yielded
recommendations such as improving dissemination of decisions and justifications and
setting explicit regulations on the allocative process. The findings demonstrated that the
geographic equity in Peninsular Malaysia can be further enhanced by ensuring more
MOH hospital expenditure are spent in poorer states. The recommendations on the
allocative process could help MOH to mitigate unjustified external influence asserted
upon the decision makers. (487 words)
Key Words: Healthcare Resources, Geographic Equity, Fair Allocative Proces
Female labour force participation in Malaysia / Lim Li Huan
No full textThe main objective of this study is to analyse the participation rate of the female labour force in Malaysia in 2015. The female labour force participation rate is the per cent of the female population ages 15 and above are economically active, either by working or by looking for work. Since the independence of Malaysia, the participation of women tends to be lower than men labour force in the labour market. However, these gender differences in labour participation rate have been narrowing substantially in recent decades. The increase in the female labour force may due to education opportunities lead to a higher share of skilled occupations in women’s employment. Bivariate analysis is used on the sample of 35,933 female labours out of 72,322 total labours in the dataset. The selected variables that affect the participation of women labour force are educational attainment, age of the female, state, stratum, ethnic group and marital status. Labour Force Survey 2015 is the main data source used in this study. The study found that the selected variables have a significant effect on female labour force status. In conclusion, cooperation from various authorities is essential to boost the participation of female in the labour market
Effect of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma on wound bacteria and cell proliferation / Norhayati Mohd Nasir
No full textNon-thermal plasma produced in the plasma jet at atmospheric pressure consists of many reactive species and free radicals. The use of the atmospheric plasma jet has been expanded from surface treatment on polymers and biomaterials to the application as plasma medicine. It has been studied as a tools for wound sterilizations, enhance wound healing, topical treatment of skin diseases caused by bacteria infection and cancer therapy in recent research. The current study aims to investigate the effect of plasma on chronic wound bacteria as a supplementary to wound management particularly for compromised patients. The common practice in wound management is systemic antibiotic therapy that of poor penetration to specific region of tissues like wounds caused by burns. In the application of the non-thermal plasma in wound therapy, the antiseptic effect on bacteria inhibition is confirmed and its effect on the growth of the fibroblast cells is revealed. Two dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) configurations, planar DBD and capillary configuration powered by (AC) and direct current (DC) sources were employed to generate non-thermal plasma. The electrical characteristics was measured and emission spectroscopy was obtained. The analysis based of the current-voltage and power measurements gave the properties of the non-thermal plasma. The methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) isolated from chronic wound bacteria strains were treated with the non-thermal plasma for a duration of 10 mins to 60 mins. The efficacy of the plasma jet was further investigated on bacteria lawn. E coli lawn with short exposure from 10 s to 120 s. Fibroblast cells were also treated with plasma jet with AC powered to test the potential toxicity of plasma. The fibroblast cells were subjected to the non-thermal plasma at distant of 5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm and 20 mm. The plasma dosage has been calculated by using multiple linear regression. It is found that low dosage of plasma produces cell proliferation effect. This results suggests that non-thermal plasma has advantage in wound management not only by its antiseptic effects but also simulate cell proliferation thus promote healing at specified treatment conditions
Toxicity studies of 1'-S-1'-acetoxychavicol acetate in rat model / Yasir Osman Ali Abdalla
No full textNatural compounds are the main source of therapeutic molecules for various diseases in this era, and most of the current medicines are derived from plants, microorganisms or animals. Nevertheless, the safety profile of these natural compounds has to be confirmed prior to their medicinal use. 1'-S-1'-acetoxychavicol acetate (ACA), a type of phenylpropanoid extracted from Alpinia conchigera Griff., is one of the natural compounds being investigated for its potential therapeutic purposes. ACA was previously reported to reduce tumour volume in athymic mice at the effective dose of 1.56 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally and induce apoptotic death of tumour cells through the activation of caspase 3, 9, and 8 in the mitochondrial and Fas-dependent pathways and inactivation of the NF-κB pathway. However, a detailed toxicological profile for ACA has not yet been investigated. Therefore, a toxicity analysis involving intravenous ACA treatments in Sprague-Dawley male/female rats for an acute study of 2, 4 and 6.66 mg/kg doses of body weight for 14 days was conducted. In addition, a sub-acute study with weekly injections of 0.66, 1.33 and 2.22 mg/kg was also performed for 28 days. In these toxicity studies, ACA treatment did not affect behaviour, food/water intake or body weight, and showed insignificant changes in haematology and biochemical parameters or rat mortality. Thus, the LD50 value for ACA is higher than 6.66 mg/kg regardless of the sex of rats. Though there were mild inflammation of the kidneys and lobular hepatitis in sub-acute studies, these were not associated with significant functional adverse effects when compared with control rats. The no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) for intravenous ACA treatment in 28-day sub-acute studies was 2.22 mg/kg body weight for both male and female rats. The findings show that intravenous ACA treatment at doses tested between 0.66 and 6.66 mg/kg body weight in both acute and sub-acute studies does not result in significant toxicity or death in rats. The present study provides useful information on the safe use of ACA on normal rat model
Aggregate stock liquidity of Bursa Malaysia / Liew Ping Xin
No full textLiquidity plays a crucial role in the functioning of secondary stock markets. However, little is known about the liquidity condition and how trading activities of different investor groups affect liquidity in the Malaysian stock exchange. This thesis focuses on three aspects of Malaysian stock market liquidity, namely, aggregate liquidity in the context of foreign equity flows, higher-order statistical moments of liquidity in the context of proprietary day trading, and, the liquidity connectedness of stock, bond, money and foreign exchange markets. First, this thesis examines the impact of gross foreign equity inflows on aggregate liquidity in a Vector Autoregression framework using newly assembled foreign trading data over the period from October 2009 to December 2016. Based on the best performing bid-ask spread proxy for Malaysian stocks – Closing Percent Quoted Spread (CPQS), a one-way causality from gross foreign equity inflows to aggregate liquidity is detected. The participation of foreign investors erodes the stock market liquidity. Uncertainties in the U.S. markets negatively affect aggregate liquidity through the flows of foreign institutions, whose positive feedback trading destabilizes the local bourse. Despite the shocks, there is sufficient liquidity provision from local state-backed institutional funds and local proprietary day traders. Second, capitalizing on the availability of trade data of proprietary day traders (PDTs), the liquidity effect of PDTs’ trading is empirically assessed in a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) framework using daily data spanning October 2012 to June 2018. Higher PDTs’ trade volume promotes aggregate liquidity, and this is attributable to intense competition among informed traders. However, such improved liquidity comes at the expense of higher conditional volatility and conditional skewness of CPQS. The former is due to the exchange-imposed immediacy for PDTs to close their open positions, whereas the latter can be attributed to the exclusive intraday short selling rights granted to PDTs. Lastly, this thesis computes both static and time-varying liquidity connectedness indices of four financial asset markets – stock, bond, money and foreign exchange using daily data spanning from July 2005 to December 2018. The analysis reveals that liquidity connectedness is severely underestimated in the static framework. In the time-varying framework, total liquidity connectedness of the four asset markets is significantly responsive to market events. The foreign exchange market emerges as the main transmitter as well as receiver of liquidity spillovers. The liquidity connectedness surges during crisis periods such as the Global Financial Crisis. Spillovers are the strongest for volatility connectedness, followed by return connectedness and lastly, liquidity connectedness
The effects of music arousal level and tempo on card game players’ risk-taking and EEG mental state among introverts and extroverts / Ho Hao Yi
No full textThis is an experimental quantitative study which examined the effects of music arousal level and tempo on card game players’ risk-taking and EEG mental state among introverts and extroverts. A total of 20 male participants (through selection of 10 introverts and 10 extroverts) aged between 18 – 29 voluntarily participated by playing the card game In-Between. All participants put on the NeuroSky® MindWaveTM Mobile EEG device and played the game while being exposed to various music conditions. The conditions were no-music (control) condition, and a set of both high-arousal (hereafter HA) and low-arousal (hereafter LA) music manipulated to three different tempi, which are 100% (normal tempo), 175% (faster tempo), and 75% (slower tempo). In terms of gameplay risk-taking among the arousal level conditions, findings showed that there were only significant differences between HA and LA music conditions, but insignificant between the music and no-music conditions. Among the tempo conditions, overall risk taken were highest during the highly-arousing and extremely-fast music tempo condition, while overall risk taken were lowest during the lowly-arousing and original music tempo condition. In terms of gameplay EEG mental state, attention and meditation levels were highest when the music stimuli were optimally-arousing, in which the optimal arousal level of extroverts is generally higher than introverts, in accordance with the optimal arousal hypothesis. However, over-arousal impairs mental state and task performance, in which its effects will be much more detrimental among introverts
Teenagers’ wellness in divorced families: A phenomenological study / Sarada Devi R.Subramaniam
No full textThis study aimed to explore an in-depth understanding on the wellness of teenagers
in divorced families. This qualitative study used the phenomenological approach to
explore the experience of ten teenagers living with single mothers after the divorce of
their parents. Participants in this research are 10 teenagers age between 16 to 18
years’ old who lived with their mothers after their parents' divorce. The duration of
their parents' divorce during the data collection was in the range of one to ten
years.Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and document analysis by
social media. Data were analysed using NVIVO12 software. Nine themes and 26
sub-themes emerged from this study. Three main themes and ten subthemes
answered the first research question on, what is the meaning of wellness among
teenagers in divorced families? Another three more theme and eight sub themes
answered the second research question on, what are the perception of teenagers
towards wellness in divorced families? The remaining three themes and eight sub
themes answered the third research question on, how does divorce changes the
wellness in teenager’s life? In conclusion, teenagers’ in this study accepted the
changes that occurred as a result of parental divorce. The implications of this study is
viewed from three aspects; 1) practical implications for professions such as
counselors, 2) theoretical implications for future research, and 3) implications in the
field of education for the wellness of the community. The information extracted from
the findings of this study can help counselors to understand better on the actual living
experience of teenagers in divorced families. The study also helps counsellors to
understand how some teenagers manage to live a successful life and fulfilling all the
wellness of life in spite of living in divorced families. As this study only focus on
teenagers living with their mother after their parents’ divorce, it recommends future researchers to consider exploring areas of wellness among teenagers in joint custody
parents or teenagers living with their single father after the parental divorce