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Conflicts and challenges experienced by the female leaders in public and private universities in Saudi Arabia: A case study / Afaf Awad Alsubhi
No full textThis study explored the conflicts and challenges encountered by female leaders in the higher education sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study further investigated the impacts of the religious features as well as the empowerment on the conflicts and challenges faced by women in Saudi Arabia. In this study the researcher employed a multiple case study, the data collection techniques of this qualitative study involved in-depth interviews and document analysis. The researcher used a purposive sampling approach to select 10 female academic leaders from private and public universities in Saudi Arabia. The data were analysed using a qualitative analytical tool called NVivo. The findings of the study indicated that female education leaders are facing numerous barriers in pursuing their professional responsibilities. Conflicts arise at the end as a consequence of the obstacles that they meet all along. There were some differences identified as the causes of conflicts among the leaders in the public and private universities. In the public universities, female leaders are more autonomous, but they need to follow certain protocols. Men are less supportive and less cooperative probably because of job-stability. On the other hand, in private universities, leaders are more open-minded and cooperative because of the organisational rules, but female leaders need to handle heavier workload. In some cases, due to their lack of skills and experiences they cannot provide enough support to their subordinates. The researcher concluded the study by explaining the implications of the study for the higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
An analysis of blends in local English newspapers / Komalata Manokaran
Get PDFNumerous blends are often found in the newspapers such as brunch (breakfast + lunch), chocoholic (chocolate + alcoholic), and brick-tacular (brick + spectacular). Blend is a type of word-formation technique combining two clipped words termed as source words (SWs). This qualitative study explores blends found in local English newspapers; they are The Star, News Straits Times, The Malay Mail, and The Borneo Post. The study aims to (1) classify types of blends and (2) analyse the differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic in blends. This research uses two theories dealing with definition of blends and types of blends. The types of blends are studied based on Mattiello’s (2013) framework: morphotactic (total and partial blend), morphological and graphic (overlapping and non-overlapping) and morphosemantic (attributive and coordinative). Furthermore, the differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic in blends are studied based on Bauer’s (2006, 2012) framework. Overall, 276 blends were selected to analyse their types of blends and semantic types (paradigmatic and syntagmatic) using a qualitative approach. The classifications of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic origin blend are based on their contextual meaning. The results reveal that the local English newspapers seem to be using more blends coined through the total blend and mostly are syntagmatic origin blends. The paper concludes that although there are many types of blends formed intentionally or unintentionally, the semantic types of blends determine the function of blends. Furthermore, the differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic blends can be related as paradigmatic blends (shares same lexical class), while syntagmatic blends has two types termed as right-headed and left-headed. Syntagmatic blends mostly are endocentric, which means one of the SWs acts as a semantic head and the other SW as a modifier. The semantic relation defines the order of the two SWs. The semantic head always goes to the right side in blends, termed right-headed syntagmatic blends
Impacts of self-perceived malocclusion on the oral health-related quality of life of young adults in Malaysia / Zawani Mohd Tajudin
Get PDFObjectives: To assess the prevalence, severity and extent of impacts of self-perceived
malocclusion on the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) related to dental
aesthetics among young Malaysian adults, to compare between those with and without
self-perceived malocclusion and to investigate the influence of demographics on the
outcome. Methods: Multi-stage random sampling method was used to recruit 589 subjects
from tertiary institutions in Malaysia. Study instruments comprised the Aesthetic
Component of the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (AC-IOTN) and Malaysian
version of the Psychosocial Impact of Dental Aesthetics (PIDA) to measure selfperceived malocclusion and its impacts. Analyses included multifactorial ANOVA and
Pearson correlation. Results: The response rate was 83.5%. Data analysis included
complete data on 524 subjects. 92.6% of subjects with self-perceived malocclusion
reported impacts on their OHRQoL. Psychological Impact was the most prevalent domain
affected (75.8%), followed by Dental Self Confidence (59.4%), Social Impact (48.9%)
and Aesthetic Concern (22.1%) domains. 28.6% subjects with self-perceived
malocclusion reported significant impact on all domains while their mean severity PIDA
scores were 43.9 (±16.1). Females had higher PIDA scores than males while Malays had
higher PIDA scores than Indians (p>0.05) but the effect sizes were small. There was small
yet significant interaction effect between gender and place of residence. Females in suburban and rural areas had significantly higher PIDA scores than their male counterparts.
Conclusion: The study provided baseline data to demonstrate that Malaysian young adults
were highly impacted by their perception of their malocclusion. Gender, race and
residence influenced this effect
Partial discharge classification for XLPE cable joints using K nearest neighbors algorithm / Muhammad Shairazi Mohd Salleh
Get PDFDue to excellent mechanical and electrical properties, cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) cables are commonly used in the power industry. However, cable joints are the weakest part of XLPE cables and are susceptible to insulation failures. Cable joint insulation breakup can cause large losses for power companies. It is therefore necessary to evaluate the consistency of the insulation for early detection of insulation failure. It is known that there is a link between the partial discharge (PD) and the quality of the insulation. PD analysis is an important tool for assessing the quality of insulation in cable joints. In this study, XLPE cable joints with artificial defects, which are commonly found on-site, were prepared. The input data from the PD measurement results were used to train k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm to classify each type of defect in the cable joint samples. Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) was used to denoise the PD signals and denoised PD signals were used to identify different types of defect in cable joints. The extracted input features from the denoised signals were used to train the classifier. Classifications were also carried out using support vector machine (SVM) and artificial neural network (ANN) for comparison with KNN. The performance of each method was evaluated through its accuracy. From the comparison of the results obtained, it was found that the approach for partial discharge of cable joint defect signals using DWT method and classified by KNN yields the highest accuracy among all of the methods tested under different signal-to-noise ratios
Functional characterisation of cancer-associated fibroblasts from nasopharyngeal carcinoma / Wong Wee Lin
Get PDFNasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains a major health issue in Southern China and
Southeast Asia where the disease is endemic. Whilst the cure rate for early stage NPC is
high, patients often present with late stage diseases and have a 5-year survival rate of less
than 50%. NPC patients often suffer from severe treatment side effects because of the
location of the tumours that is in proximity to various important organs in the head and
neck region. Therefore, alternative therapeutic approaches are needed to improve the
treatment outcomes and reduce patient morbidity. Targeted therapies are not in routine
use to treat NPC and therapeutic advances will require a more detailed understanding of
the molecular basis of the disease. The tumour microenvironment (TME), which consists
of various non-malignant cell types and extracellular matrix proteins, is known to support
tumour development and progression in a number of cancer types. Cancer-associated
fibroblasts (CAFs) are often the pre-eminent cell type within the TME of solid tumours
and a number of tumour promoting properties of CAFs have been described. The role of
CAFs in the pathogenesis of NPC, however, has received little attention. The present
study was designed to phenotypically characterise a panel of CAFs derived from NPC
tumours (NPC-CAFs) by examining their expression of CAF markers (α-SMA, PDPN,
FAPα, PDGFRα/β and CAV-1), degree of senescence as well as to investigate their
functional roles in NPC pathogenesis. The present study showed that the CAF strains
expressed heterogeneous levels of alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and interestingly,
the CAF strains with high levels α-SMA also contained a high proportion of senescent
cells. Notably, NPC-CAFs exclusively expressed podoplanin (PDPN), as PDPN
expression was absent in normal fibroblasts. Next, the ability of the CAFs to promote
NPC cell proliferation and migration, and also inhibit EBV-specific CD8 T cell responses
iv
was investigated. MTT cell proliferation assays showed that conditioned media (CM)
from NPC-CAFs had no effect in NPC cell proliferation. However, in transwell migration
and T cell activation assays, CM from NPC-CAFs significantly enhanced the migration
of NPC cells and inhibited IFN-γ production from antigen-stimulated EBV-specific CD8
T cells. Significantly, NPC-CAFs also inhibited CD8 T cells through cell-cell contact and
this effect was likely to be PD-1/PD-L1 independent, as PD-L1 mRNA expression was
not consistently upregulated in these NPC-CAFs. To begin to investigate which secreted
proteins in the CM might be responsible for the effects on NPC cell migration and T cell
activity, cytokine arrays were used to compare the profiles of cytokines secreted by
normal fibroblasts and NPC-CAFs. The analyses revealed that NPC-CAFs had higher
secretion of RANTES, MCP-3 and VEGF A than NPC-CAFs normal fibroblasts.
Collectively, the present study showed that NPC-CAFs are phenotypically distinct from
normal fibroblasts and may contribute to NPC pathogenesis by promoting a more motile
and possibly metastatic phenotype in NPC cells, as well as by contributing to an
immunosuppressive microenvironment. Therefore, the development of strategies to target
CAFs could provide novel therapeutic opportunities for patients with NPC
Improving client-consultant-contractor communication in construction industry through whatsapp application / Muhammad Hafizul Taib
Get PDFA Smooth and effective communication is very important in construction industry to prevent iteration and rework which will cause money. Since there are a lot of parties involve in construction,it is important to have a good communication platform. In the current world, people are using the technology advancement to enhance the effectiveness of communication amongst people who work in construction industry. Though there are a lot of mobile application designed for construction purpose, WhatsApp is the most commonly used by all. However, there are no studies done to identify the effectiveness of it. This thesis will gather respond from client, consultant and contractor who are working in construction industry on the effectiveness of WhatsApp for the main communication platform. This thesis will also suggest on improvement to the mobile application by adding some features that the respondents think are useful to improve communication
Preparation and characterisation of heat treated oil palm-empty fruit bunch/high density polyethylene composites / Nur Afifah Nordin
Get PDFNatural fibre composites (NFCs) are composite materials, in which the reinforcing fibres are derived from renewable and carbon dioxide neutral resources such as wood or plants. NFC can be made by replacing synthetic fibres with various types of natural fibres. Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibre and oil palm mesocarp fibre are two important types of fibrous materials left in the palm-oil industry. In this study, EFB will be used as a reinforcement to the high-density polyethylene (HDPE). EFB was heat-treated at 180°C using vacuum oven for one hour, extrusion compounded with HDPE at 10%, 20% and 30% weight fraction. The composites then were injection moulded into dumb-bell and bar shaped specimens using a Boy® 55M injection moulding machine. All of the composites were exposed to different environments and the effects of conditioning were discussed relative to the sample in dry as moulded condition as reference. The effects of composition and heat treatment on the thermal properties of composites were investigated using Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The tensile and flexural tests were also done using an Instron Universal Testing Machine. The impact test was run under Charpy mode using an Instron Dynatup 9210 instrumented falling weight impact tester with a V-shape impactor tup. TGA shows an increase in degradation peak temperature of the heat-treated composites. DSC results revealed that EFB had no significant effect on the melting behaviour of the composites. However, an increasing trend in the degree of crystallinity (Xc) of the composite is observed as the heat treated EFB was used in the system. An increment in the tensile modulus and tensile strain were observed for the treated fibre composites due to the improved wetting between fibre and matrix. Hence, leading to better interfacial adhesion between them. In addition, the tensile strength value was increased for treated fibre composites with lower fibre loading. In impact tests, the fracture energy (W) of composites increased with increasing of fibre content. However, the critical strain energy release rate decreases with increasing of fibre content. In addition, the peak load (P) and critical stress intensity factor (Kc) increased with fibre contents. Moreover, the value of P, W, Kc and Gc increased with fibre treatment. All composites absorb moisture to various extents with the untreated fibre composites show the highest value of absorption. Thermal and mechanical properties reduced after soil burial on the composites. For that condition, composites made from heat treated EFB shows better thermal stability due to the improved compatibility between fibres and matrices, thus lowering the moisture intake, hence improve better thermal stability. Mechanical properties reduced due to attack of microorganisms that promote further composite degradation rate. The treated fibre composites showed more resistance towards the environment. However, indoor exposure has no significant effect on thermal and mechanical properties of composites. The MFI values of untreated and treated fibre composites decreased with the increase of EFB fibre loading in the syste
Psychological determinants of financial planning for retirement among university employees / Choo Siew Ming
Get PDFRetirement refers to the post-work period of a person’s life. During this period, individuals cease working, thus affecting their regular source of income. Hence, it is important that individuals plan to cater for the financial requirements during retirement. However, planning is not an easy task as individuals are besieged by a variety of psychological, environmental, financial and life challenges. Current research in this field had been inconclusive and fragmented on the determinants influencing planning behaviours. This research aims to draw on the constructs of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to investigate this behaviour, in particular planning financially for retirement. TPB assumes that behaviour can be predicted and explained by using a set of determinants; that is attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Research using TPB’s integrative framework has been positive in many studies but its use in financial and retirement behaviour studies is limited. To investigate the suitability of TPB, a survey is conducted among a sample of university employees in Malaysia. The findings reveal that subjective norms and attitudes influence intentions to plan. Conversely, perceived behavioural control has no influence on intentions. These findings provide empirical support for the use of TPB as a general model of planning for financial retirement in Malaysia. It contributes to the body of knowledge on financial behaviours, by stressing the importance of understanding the motivations of individuals in their choices on financial matters, planning and retirement issues
Identification of a Malaysian tiger milk mushroom specimen and characterisation of its mycelial (1,3)-β-D-Glucan / Siti Rokhiyah Ahmad Usuldin
Get PDFThe tiger milk mushroom (Lignosus rhinocerus) is an important medicinal mushroom and regarded as Malaysia national heritage. Its sclerotia (tuber) has been consumed by the indigenous community (Orang Asli) to treat illnesses such as asthma, fever, cough, cancer and other diseases. The mushroom is rare and difficult to find in nature and has frequently been confused with another mushroom of similar anatomy. Traditionally, the cultivation of the sclerotium takes a long time and propagation of its mycelial biomass and exopolysaccharides (EPS) in a stirred-tank bioreactor is an excellent alternative technique. The present study aimed to identify the wild-Malaysian tiger milk mushroom and characterise the extracted EPS from its mycelial culture in a stirred-tank bioreactor. The mushroom was morphologically identified based on its pileus, stipe and sclerotium. The extracted fungal DNA was sequenced and found to have 99% similar to L. rhinocerus strains CH31 and CH2. Phylogenetically, evolutionary distance (Knuc) and plasmid-matching software (ApE) for sequences of matching fungal species verified that the isolate belonged to the L. rhinocerus species and warranted as Lignosus rhinocerus strain ABI (LRSA). The strain was cultured in a 13 L stirred-tank Labfors, Infors-HT bioreactor and its mycelial β-glucan (G) was extracted for compound characterisation. The structure of EPS was studied using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). FT-IR spectroscopy showed that G exhibited a similar β-glycosidic structure to the standard (laminarin) and the presence of characteristic bands at 3277, 2919, 1638, 1545, 1400, 1078 and 896 cm-1 confirmed the similarities. 1H and 13C NMR, as well as 2D NMR: homonuclear correlation spectroscopy (COSY), total correlation spectroscopy (TOCSY), heteronuclear multiple quantum coherence (HMQC) and heteronuclear multiple bond coherence (HMBC) spectra, were used for structural elucidation of the β-glucan and confirmed the extracted material as (1,3)-β-D-glucan. These findings may facilitate the development of G production in a high-scale bioreactor using LRSA
Sustainability balanced scorecard architecture and environmental investment decision making: The mediating and moderating effects of knowledge and risk indicators / Suaad Jassem
Get PDFAccording to a survey by Bain and Company, the majority of the sustainability programs undertaken by global companies fail to meet their objectives. A part of the reason for such a dilemma is possibly due to the dearth of sufficient research on how investment and performance evaluation tools such as sustainability balanced scorecards architecture impact decisions taken by managerial decision-makers. Hence, this doctoral research endeavor extends the literature on sustainability balanced scorecards (SBSC) architecture by examining how they influence decision-makers when they attempt to achieve environmental goals of their organization through evaluation of environmental investment options. An experimental research model is proposed in this study developed by leveraging the premise of the Adaptive Decision Maker Framework and also the loss aversion component of the Prospect Theory. The goal of the study is to determine if significant difference exists between SBSC with sustainability parameters embedded with the four BSC perspectives (referred to as SBSC-4) and SBSC with sustainability as an additional fifth perspective (referred to as SBSC-5), when decision-makers use them to make environmental investment decision-making. The study also investigates the role of SBSC knowledge as a possible mediator and risk indicators as a possible moderator in the above relationships. The experiment was conducted on 108 managers working in multinational manufacturing companies, where the participants were selected from two different geographical regions of Asia (China and the Gulf Countries in the Middle East). The participants were divided into four separate experimental groups (SBSC-4 without risk, SBSC-4 with risk, SBSC-5 without risk, and SBSC-5 with risk). The data analysis was conducted by using Two-Way ANOVA for group comparisons in a Two-factor factorial design approach, while the moderation effect and the moderated-mediation effect was tested through Hayes Process Macro in SPSS (model 8). The results indicate that there is a significant difference between SBSC-4 and SBSC-5 in terms of their impact on environmental investment decision-making. The difference remains significant in presence of risk indicators. This study also finds that the relationship between the two types of SBSC architecture and environmental investment decision-making is mediated by SBSC knowledge and moderated by risk indicators. This study further examines whether a significant moderated-mediation relationship exists in an integrated model with the two types of SBSC architecture and environmental investment decision-making. The findings of this experimental research suggest that SBSC knowledge and risk indicators influence decision outcomes when the two SBSC configurations are utilized by decision-makers to evaluate environmental investment options