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Mediating effect of teachers’ job satisfaction on principals’ distributed leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment at international schools in Kuala Lumpur / Vicneswary Muthiah
No full textThe concept of distributed leadership has gained more interest in the educational sector and promoted positive development of school leadership in international schools. Thus, this study investigated the role of principals’ distributed leadership in international schools in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in enhancing teachers’ organizational commitment through the mediation of teachers’ job satisfaction. Based on a descriptive and quantitative research design, this study has employed survey method with the distribution of questionnaire from three adapted measurement scales: The Distributed Leadership Inventory, the Teacher Job Satisfaction Scale and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire. Rasch measurement was used to ensure that the scales had acceptable measures of reliability and validity. Cronbach’s alpha values exceeded 0.70, person reliability and item reliability were above 0.80, item separation and person separation exceeded 2.0 for each of the scales. Using stratified random sampling, 200 respondents among teachers were selected from ten international schools. The structural equation modeling based on a partial least square was utilized in this study to examine the direct and indirect relationships among the variables. Data were statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS Ver. 23.0 and SmartPLS Ver. 3.2.8. Findings showed that the principals’ distributed leadership has a positive and significant relationships with teachers’ job satisfaction and teachers’ organizational commitment. The teachers’ job satisfaction and teachers’ organizational commitment relationship was also positive and significant. The dimensions of principals’ distributed leadership, namely: leadership function quality and distribution, cooperation within the leadership team and teacher decision-making participation were positively and significantly related to teachers’ organizational commitment but not the dimension of supervision quality and distribution. It was found that teachers’ job satisfaction plays the role of a mediator in the relationships of principals’ distributed leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment. Findings showed that the relationships of two dimensions of distributed leadership (cooperation within the leadership team and teacher decision-making participation) with teachers’ organizational commitment were mediated but for another two dimensions (leadership function quality and distribution and supervision quality and distribution) were not mediated by teachers’ job satisfaction. Overall, the predictive accuracy and relevancy of the research model could explain the principals’ distributed leadership’s effect on job satisfaction of the teachers (R2 = 0.417, Q2 = 0.234, f2 = 0.694) and on teachers’ organizational commitment (R2 = 0.786, Q2 = 0.481; f2 = 1.583). These findings contributed significantly mainly to provide evidence empirically on the importance of principals’ distributed leadership to improve teachers’ satisfaction and commitment. This study provides a good foundation to conduct more studies on principals’ distributed leadership and its outcome in terms of job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the teachers with a broader population coverage. The findings call for an enriching of the research model with the inclusion of other educational outcomes such as student and school performance. Conclusively, this study advocates the effective and efficient practices of principals’ distributed leadership to ensure high job satisfaction and organizational commitment level among teachers so as to ensure high quality education services in international schools in Malaysia
Multi-tier classification based on sentiment, type, emotion and purpose for online diabetes community / Wandeep Kaur Ratan Singh
No full textThe evolution of social media platforms has created a niche for users to increasingly turn to such sites in order to share and exchange health related information. Facebook being one of the largest social networking sites has only encouraged such exchange thus mounting to a sheer amount of data that is hidden within unstructured text. The aim of this research is to propose a multi-tier classification based on sentiment, type, emotion and purpose (STEP) to classify data collected from diabetes community within Facebook. There are three tiers within the proposed STEP framework namely type, purpose and sentiment (and emotion within same tier). The first tier looks into the classification of type of diabetes. Here a manual type lexicon dictionary catering for all three forms of diabetes (type1, type 2 and gestational diabetes) was created. Naïve Bayes using n-gram was used for classification purpose where the proposed STEP framework was able to produce a F1-Score of 77% against benchmark models. Posts that could not be classified into any one type were grouped under Other while the correctly classified posts from this tier moved down to the next tier for purpose classification. In the next tier, posts were classified according to symptoms, lifestyle and treatment. A weighted information gain feature selection technique was adopted where weights were redistributed for those features that have been wrongly classified within the training phase. Co-training multinomial Naïve Bayes was used where the two base classifiers were used for both label and feature classification. The uniqueness lies in using dimensionality reduction technique of converting numeric vectors to string vectors using Word2Vec that improved F1-Score of 61% compared to only 48%. The last tier in the proposed STEP framework looked into sentiment and emotion classification. Here a mathematical equation was proposed to calculate sentiment intensity using Facebook behaviors of like, comment, share and reaction. Studies in the past have looked to analyze the use of this behaviors and how they impact sales, however, the attempt made in this research is to convert those numbers to intensity which could be used to better classify sentiment. Results show proposed sentiment classifier was able to produce better classification of F1-Score 84%. Emotion classification was also conducted within the same tier where Word2Vec common bag of words model was adopted using bootstrapping methodology. A similarity check between annotated corpus and Emolex determined the dominant emotion and thus classified post accordingly. This improved the classification process from detecting multiple emotion per post to classifying the most dominant emotion extracted from post. The proposed framework was able to improve overall classification accuracy within each of its tiers and using a multi-tier framework, it was able to remove posts that do not contribute towards classification within the upper layers thus contributing to a more refined dataset for classification within its lower tiers.
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Factors influencing maladaptive behaviour among street children in Khartoum, Sudan / Najla Abdallah Mohammed Ahmed
No full textChildren living on the streets are a common sight in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and in other parts of the country. In the case of Khartoum's street children, they have left their homes for the streets to satisfy their basic needs among which are food, alternate shelter and clothing. The absence of these things may force children to take to the streets where they think they have better opportunities to have access to their basic needs. These children are vulnerable and defenceless, may be pressed or intimidated into being involved in criminal activities, including in the illegal drug industry. While some street children earn their livelihood by cleaning cars and shining shoes, others get themselves involved in unlawful deeds such as pickpocketing, stealing and peddling drugs. This form of earning livelihood puts street children in extremely compromising conditions, jeopardising their health and social-psychological welfare by exposing them to risks of contracting infections and hostile treatment by law enforcement agencies. To address the issue of street children, this study aims to first, investigate the factors that determine maladaptive behaviour among street children. Second, this study intends to examine the coping strategies for the survival of the street children; and third, to analyse the effect of the length of stay on the street children’s behaviour. A total of 12 marketplaces in Khartoum state and its three municipalities, namely, Khartoum, Omdurman, North Khartoum (Bahri) were selected in the current study as these localities have massive numbers of street children, who seek job opportunities. Using a division by geographical clusters of the areas, 330 street children were selected as the sample of the study using a purposive sampling technique. Then, a quantitative survey was used to obtain data from the respondents. In addition, convenient sampling was used to gather 10 participants for a focus group discussion in each locality, Khartoum, Omdurman and North Khartoum. The obtained quantitative data were analysed through covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling using AMOS version 24. The qualitative data from the focus group discussions were organised and subsequently coded based on themes described by the respondents or others that were related to their responses. The results of the study revealed that there is a strong association among socio-economic status (SES), family factors, socio-psychological factors and maladaptive behaviour outcomes. SES and family factors increased the hardship and created harmful living conditions for the children on the street besides other negative social behaviours on the street that influenced their behaviour. Additionally, the ignorance in the street environment, the danger children face on the street, the interaction with people and peers do more harm than good to the street children even though the majority of these children are still staying with their families. The findings indicated that there is a significant association between the duration of stay on the street and maladaptive. In addition, the results of the qualitative analysis revealed the street peers were seen as the children’s biggest support system where they learn survival and secure job opportunities. Besides, the analysis of the qualitative data showed that some members of the public behave kindly towards the street children, while the quantitative data showed that peer and the public influenced their behaviour negatively. To cope with their hardship, street children were found to take substances such as drugs and alcohol and perform illegal activities in the streets. The key message delivered by this study is the government must make a clear policy to support poor families by distributing direct transfers (cash handouts) and the basic minimum income should be also secured to guarantee the children's welfare, security and sense of family life. A free education policy and fee waivers for all children below 18 years of age should be made compulsory. Moreover, free meals for poor children should also be warranted
Pembangunan video interaktif 360˚ biodiversiti paya bakau bagi murid Tingkatan Empat / Rohaillah Mohd Jabid
No full textLawatan lapangan merupakan satu kaedah pembelajaran yang mampu meningkatkan pengetahuan murid dan seterusnya menjadi jambatan antara pembelajaran secara formal dan juga pembelajaran tidak formal. Namun, terdapat kekangan yang dihadapi oleh guru dalam menjalankan kaedah pembelajaran lawatan lapangan ini seperti faktor keselamatan, kewangan dan juga masa. Teknologi realiti maya mampu menjadi satu alternatif kepada lawatan lapangan. Kajian ini merupakan kajian yang membangunkan video lawatan lapangan secara maya iaitu Video Interakif 360 darjah Biodiverisiti Paya Bakau (ViBioD) yang dibangun berpandukan Model Reka Bentuk Pembangunan ADDIE. Teori yang mendasari pembangunan ViBioD ini adalah Teori Kognitif Multimedia Mayer (1990) dan Model Penerimaan Teknologi. Pembangunan Video Interaktif ini di mulakan dengan Fasa Analisis dimana keperluan pembanguan video di analisis, diikuti dengan Fasa Reka Bentuk yang membincangkan reka bentuk yang digunakan untuk pembinaan ViBioD ini berserta teori yang mendasarinya. Fasa seterusnya iaitu Fasa Pembangunan yang membincangkan perkakasan teknologi yang digunakan serta langkah-langkah pembinaan ViBioD ini. Fasa Perlaksanaan melihat permasalahan yang timbul dalam pembangunan serta penambahbaikan dilakukan didalam fasa ini sebelum fasa seterusnya. Fasa Penilaian menilai kebolehgunaan ViBioD ini sebagai alternatif bagi kaedah pembelajaran secara lawatan yang melibatkan lima murid tingkatan empat. Kutipan data dijalankan secara temu bual dan pemerhatian. Dapatan kajian mendapati ViBioD boleh di digunakan sebagai satu alternatif bagi kaedah pembelajaran secara lawatan lapangan dan bahan bantu mengajar seperti video interaktif 360° mudah dibangunkan. Implikasi kajian juga turut dibincangkan
Molecular characterisation of HSP70 gene expression, histopathology and immune system of snakehead fish, Channa striata, under temperature and bacterial stress / Ihlam Ibrahim Eid Elhussein
No full textSnakeheads are air-breathing freshwater fishes containing two genera, Channa (Asia) and Parachanna (Africa). The Asian genus is dominated by Channa striata which is found in southern and Southeastern parts of the continent. In this research, environmental and bacteria stressor to Channa striata were investigated. HSP70 gene was studied as an environmental stress gene (ChHSP70). Results showed a cDNA sequence of the gene to be (~918bp). It was also shown the gene is highly similar to that of other fish species. Constructing a phylogenetic tree of the gene across vertebrate species revealed six main clusters; same class remained conserved by showing high sequence similarity except for fish which showed two groups. One possible reason for this diversity might be the gradual global warming. Of the two fish groups, polymorphism was found to be higher in one of them, indicating clear bias in their mutation rates, which may result in new speciation. The clear separation between the two fish groups also suggests presence of undiscovered functional differences. Genes that are phylogenetically stable have conserved their core functions, while those that display a much more varied or unstable phylogeny have much more varied functions. This diversity in fish species may be due to the environmental adaptation of this gene to environmental stresses that are more pronounced for aquatic organisms than higher, terrestrial vertebrates. HSP70 expression has been shown to be stimulated by a wide variety of physiological and environmental stresses, including thermal shock, heavy metals, free radicals and microbial infection. Responses of HSP gene can vary according to tissue, HSP family, and stressors. The sensitivity of HSP gene expression can also vary according to species, developmental stage and season. Higher expression levels of HSP70 due to thermal stress indicates better tolerance to heat stress. In this study the expression of the gene at 32°C in the stomach and fin was higher than that of the gills. The study showed the sustainability of C. striata in term of hydrologic regime and global warming might cause mortality or even extinction of this fish. Another factor that may have affected the survival of this fish was bacterial disease. A strain of bacteria was isolated from an infected fish. Identification of the bacterium was based on 16S rRNA gene sequence of 1160bp which showed the closest match to Enterobacter soli strain LF7a (99.31% similarity). The sequences obtained designated as Enterobacter soli Es2. The current study is the first to report Enterobacter soli Es2 as a disease causative agent in fish. The main clinical signs of the disease were skin ulcer, dullness, loss of appetite and abnormal swimming behavior. Histopathologically, hepatic lesions including blood congestion were observed. The latter hinders blood movement from the hepatic portal vein and hepatic artery into the central vein resulting in dilation of sinusoids and rupture of blood vessels. Moreover, expression of galectin 8 (CsGale), glutathioneS-transferase (CsGlut), h2Calponin (CsCalp) and cytochromeb5 (CsCyto) genes, which are known as immune-related genes, were tested after challenging the fish with Enterobacter soli Es2. The tested genes showed different Patterns of expression in different tissue types
Conducive environment for teaching and learning of early literacy in a private Malaysian kindergarten / Jayamary Sundaram
No full textLiteracy is the different ways that children connect meanings to the various literacy items that they come into contact through the use of reading, writing and oral language. Early literacy or emergent literacy skills begin as soon as a child is born until the time he/she is exposed to formal reading and writing instructions. It includes the literacy knowledge, skills and attitudes that the child acquires throughout this period. Research reveals that early literacy instructions is of utmost importance as these early learning experiences could lead to better educational accomplishment and a more productive adult life. This exploratory qualitative study is undertaken to explore an environment that is conducive for the teaching and learning of early literacy in English at a Malaysian private kindergarten over time. The study is carried out with fifteen children aged four plus and their English teacher in a private kindergarten in a suburban residential area in Selangor that is legally registered with the MOE, whereby its curriculum is guided by the National Preschool Curriculum (2017). The NPSC encourages a play-based approach as a guide to improve the quality of teaching and learning of the preschool children. Since the aim of the NPSC is to develop the potential of preschoolers holistically, a well-developed theory of human development is suitable to provide the framework for this study. Hence, the Bronfenbrenner‟s Bioecological Theory of Human Development is selected for this study. Besides this, the Total Physical Response Method which states that children learn a second language in the similar way as they learn the first language and the Constructivist Theory which states that children construct meaning based on first hand interaction through play as they learn and develop in a holistic manner have also influenced this study. Data for this study is collected via the process of observation, interview and document analysis. The data is analysed using the Braun and Clarke six-step thematic analysis. The findings of this study revealed that the limited space available in the kindergarten was a hindrance in carrying out play-based activities, and the lack of storage for teaching resources restricted the teacher from adding new resources to her collection. In addition, the result also showed that the teacher lacked understanding on how English is taught as a second language to kindergarteners and also knowledge on Early Childhood Development. The findings of this study will firstly provide an insight to future planners and designers of kindergarten buildings into how the physical environment of the classroom affects the learning of the English Language. Therefore measures have to be taken to plan appropriate features in the buildings to accommodate play base activities. Secondly, this study will enlighten kindergarten administrators on the importance of setting aside a substantial amount of funds for teaching aids and storage space for these resources. Finally, this study will provide a clear insight to the English Language teacher on the skills that is needed to be an effective English Language teacher in a kindergarten
Thermodynamic properties of transverse field quantum Ising model using tensor network formalism / Pang Sin Yang
Get PDFIsing model has been successful in describing ferromagnetism and its phase transition to paramagnet. At the critical point, the free energy density function and its derivatives diverge. Their behaviour near the critical point are described by power-laws with associated critical exponents. In many cases, the critical exponents can be determined from analytic solutions via conventional renormalization groups methods or from Monte Carlo simulations. However, for quantum many-body systems, very few are tractable to analytical solutions. The quantum many-body wavefunction belongs to large dimensional Hilbert space that increases exponentially with system size. If the Hamiltonian is gapped and only local interaction is considered, then the wavefunction can be efficiently truncated. Tensor Network formalism provides a scheme to truncate the less important degrees of freedom via Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the density matrix. In this study, we investigated the thermodynamic properties and phase transition of one-dimensional transverse-field quantum Ising model (1D-tQIM) under the finite-size effect and random coupling strength. Starting with Matrix Product States (MPS) as a wavefunction ansatz, the Density Matrix Renormalization Group algorithm is applied to the MPS. The variational algorithm, which iteratively performs SVDs and truncation at each bond, approximates the ground state MPS wavefunction. All quantum observables are calculated from the contraction of the resultant ground state MPS. Although theoretically, divergence at critical points only happen in an infinite system, one can obtain the critical exponents through simulation of finite-size 1D-tQIM. Using the analytic solution as a benchmark, we compared the finite-size effects of the system using finite-size scaling analysis and MPS methods. The critical exponents of 1D-tQIM are independently calculated and compared with the analytical results. Thermodynamic quantities such as magnetization, susceptibility and correlation function are calculated for system sizes of 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 spins. We determined the respective critical exponents
Development of an electrochemical immunosensor for direct detection of acrylamide in food samples / Lau Pei Ying
Get PDFAcrylamide, a potential carcinogen which is mainly found in plant-based food such as potato chips, French fries, bread, biscuit, coffee and coco, after undergoing heating process at temperature above 120°C. The permissible maximum intake of acrylamide is 2.6 μg kg−1 of body weight per day to prevent cancer risk. Due to its neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity, a rapid detection method for acrylamide is strongly needed in food safety concern. Herein, a sample pre-treatment free electrochemical immunosensor was developed based on a displacement assay. In a displacement assay format, an antibody is initially bound to the surface immobilized hapten (analyte analogue) and upon adding of analyte (which is acrylamide in this study), antibody would exhibit a higher affinity towards its target analyte compared to hapten. This phenomenon leads to the dissociation of antibody from hapten where a displacement assay occurs. The dissociation of anti-acrylamide antibody from the electrode surface bound hapten is the predominant factor for an effective displacement assay to take place. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the effect of introducing electro-pulsion to enhance the dissociation of antibody from the surface bound hapten. The displacement assay was then being analysed in a series of electro-pulsion with positive and negative charge. Other than that, pulsing potential and pulsion duration are also factors that affecting the displacement of antibody. Consequently, the optimal conditions for a displacement assay were identified via actual experimental set-up. The findings showed the dissociation rate of antibody from the surface bound hapten could be enhanced by applying a negative electro-pulsion to the working electrode surface. In addition, a three-level three-factorial Box-Behnken experimental design was employed as theoretical statistical method to confirm the optimal displacement conditions required based on a minimal experiment number (17 trials) without involving all possible experimental combinations. By pulsing the electrode with -800 mV for 10 minutes (the optimal displacement conditions), a linear dynamic range from 0.01 μg mL−1 to 35.00 μg mL−1 was obtained, with limit of detection (LOD) of 3.84 ng mL−1. The evidences of high reproducibility and repeatability of developed immunosensor by performing a satisfied relative standard deviation (RSD) of 3.13% in reproducibility test and RSD of 5.49% to 8.22% for repeatability (intra-day and inter-day) assessments. The immunosensor could retain its detection ability for 90.69% even after 28 days storage and showed high specificity toward acrylamide. The accuracy of developed immunosensor was validated by using standard method, GC−MS. Moreover, the recoveries obtained of spiked sample were ranged between 90.33% to 99.23%. As a conclusion, the developed immunosensor showed a high reproducibility, repeatability, selectivity, sensitivity, and stability for the determination of acrylamide typically in liquid food samples (coffee, coco, and prune juice). Due to its simplicity of use which exclude sample pre-treatment steps, this developed immunosensor is believed to have potential to provide a direct and quantitative approach for the detection of acrylamide
Speckle-noise reduction in knee articular cartilage ultrasound image using anisotropic diffusion / Muhammad Shoaib Ali
Get PDFKnee arthritis is the most common type of arthritis which effects the people and may cause severe pain to the patient and can lead to joint effusion. Ultrasound (US) imaging is an appropriate and consistent substitute for other imaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging or X-rays in the investigation or screening of knee injury. Nevertheless, one of the major problems in US images which make the analysis of these images hard is the presence of speckle noise. For the reduction of speckle noise, the performance of the anisotropic method is found much better over other approaches. In removing the speckle noise, mostly used methods diffuse the edges during the diffusion of the homogenous region of US images. Therefore, the very critical task is to preserve the edges during the diffusion process. In this research, a method based on Anisotropic Diffusion (AD) is proposed to reduce the speckle noise. The proposed variation in the AD method not only reduces the speckle noise but also preserves the edges and other important detail of images efficiently. Four gradient thresholds are proposed instead of one to have comprehensive information of all neighbouring pixels. A new diffusivity function is also proposed to preserve the edges by stopping diffusion abruptly nears edges. Four different evaluation metrics i.e. Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structure Similarity Index Measurement (SSIM), Figure of Merit (FOM), and Equivalent Number of Looks (ENL) are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Numerical results attained by simulations show that the proposed method reduces the speckle noise very effectively and preserves the edges as well
Trap-assisted tunneling mechanism of Zirconium Oxynitride (ZrON) thin film on Silicon Carbide / Nicklaane Krishnamoorthy
Get PDFThis research is a study on the possibilities of trap-assisted tunneling conduction mechanism in Zirconium Oxynitride (ZrON) after Zirconium (Zr) with thickness 5nm was sputtered on Silicon Carbide (SiC) substrate which then underwent simultaneous nitridation and oxidation in Nitrous Oxide (N2O) for 15 minutes in 4 different ambient temperatures of 400°C, 500°C, 700⁰C, 900°C. Electrical properties of the samples were then characterized by fabricating Al-gate MOS capacitors onto the film surface. Of all 4 samples, sample that was oxidized/nitrided at 500°C demonstrated to have the highest dielectric breakdown (EB) of 5.05 MV/cm and lowest EB was by sample that was oxidized/nitrided at 900°C. The 1st step breakdown in J-E curve by samples oxidized/nitrided at 500°C, 700°C and 900°C were minor but there were also 2nd step breakdown and this explains that those samples could be a trap assisted tunneling (TAT) conduction mechanism. From graph of ln (JE) vs 1/E, the intercept and slope from the regression line have given the value for lowest trap density and highest trap energy at -35.8 x 1021 cm-3 and 5.92eV, respectively