13474 research outputs found
Sort by
An impact of multi sensory virtual reality on Deutsches museum visitors pleasant experience towards reuse and purchase intention / Muhammad Hamza Shahab
No full textAcademic literature highlights the gratifications of using virtual reality (VR) in tourism
but does not provide insights into fulfilling those gratifications after using multisensory
VR. Several research models are used in the literature to study gratifications,
but the literature is unable to highlight the best suitable model to measure gratifications.
Therefore, this research was conducted in a multi-sensory VRlab of Deutsches
Museum, Munich, to address the existing gaps in the literature. The first research
objective to understand visitors’ needs for using multi-sensory VR was addressed
through 11 face-to-face interviews. The research model and questionnaires for this
research were designed based on the emerging themes from interviews. The
gratification discrepancies approach (GO-GS) of uses and gratifications theory was the
primary theory applied in this research. Several nuanced gratifications were adopted,
such as entertainment, education, novelty and telepresence. The data were collected two
times from n = 227 respondents – before and after using VR through a cross-sectional
survey design. SPSS was used for the initial data screening, and PLS-SEM was used to
conduct structural equation modelling. Second research objective concludes that
education, telepresence, and novelty gratifications were over-fulfilled by VR (GO>GS),
but the entertainment was under-fulfilled (GO<GS). Visitors were expecting more
entertainment, but VR content at Deutsches Museum could not meet their expectations.
Third objective was to study the educational impact of VR at tourism destinations,
which shows a drastic change in pre and post usage familiarity, concluding that the
visitors preferred to get education from VR, and virtual reality is a good tool to provide
education during tourism activities. Fourth objective was to provide one best suitable model to measure media consumption consequences. Therefore, seven different models
were compared in quantitative analysis 1, for example, (i) gratifications sought model
Σ(GS), (ii) gratifications obtained model Σ(GO), (iii) simplified discrepancy model
Σ(GO - GS), (iv) discrepancy weighted by users’ personal importance model Σ j(GO -
GS), (v) transactional model of model iii Σ(GS+GO), (vi) transactional model of
model iv Σ j(GS+GO) and (vii) modified gratifications obtained model Σ j(GO). The
result of analysis 1 concluded that the gratifications obtained model (ii) is a suitable
model to influence the pleasantness of experience. The suitability was studied
according to the best coefficient of determination (R2) and lowest error terms of
asymptotical efficiency and consistency criteria. Fifth objective was to further
investigate the role of gratifications obtained on reuse and purchase intentions through
the mediating role of the pleasantness of experience (analysis 2). The model's
predictive ability was tested with the help of R2, the blindfolding-based measure Q2 and
PLS-predict. The visitors reported a pleasant experience through entertainment,
education, and telepresence, which led them to reuse VR at tourism destinations and
purchase it. In contrast, the novel experience of VR had no impact on reusing and
purchasing intentions. Overall, this research concludes that the simple gratifications
obtained model is a suitable model to study media consumption consequences, and
entertainment, education, and telepresence are the driving factors behind a pleasant
experience with VR. Several managerial recommendations are also presented at the end
of the thesis
Chinese-English and Malay-English code-switching in YouTube comments / Chan Jin Yang
No full textCode-switching is common among bilingual or multilingual speakers. This is due to the fact that both bilingual and multilingual speakers have a strong tendency to switch between two or more languages. Code-switching is one of the important aspects of sociolinguistics studies. Researchers have been conducting studies on oral code-switching in multilingual societies for many years. However, the emergence of computer-mediated communication, or CMC, is changing how people communicate over the Internet. Code-switching is noted in Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, emails, and blogs. This research investigates the occurrences of Chinese-English and Malay-English code-switching by YouTube users in YouTube comments. To achieve this objective, data were collected using a qualitative method. The data were collected over a period of one month, throughout May 2022 and analysed to identify the differences and similarities in the types and styles. The frequency of code-switching that took place in YouTube comments was tabulated and further discussed for better understanding. The reasons that motivated this code-switching were identified by using Hoffman’s theory (1991) of code-switching. The results did show vast differences between the types and styles used by these two pairs of languages
Design and analysis of sustainable clean energy integration in a Malaysian higher educational institution / Muhammad Firdaus Mohd Zublie
No full textThe energy sector accounts for 80% of Malaysia's greenhouse gas emissions. The education sector is one of the contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the education sector strongly supports the government's aspirations to reduce carbon emissions. This research investigates the energy-saving potential involving five end-load in educational institutions. Typically, energy audits are conducted on end-load equipment such as fans, lights, air conditioning, and ICT equipment. However, laboratory equipment is primarily not audited. This research added laboratory equipment as one of the five end-loads to be audited. Methodology for collecting energy consumption per equipment in a residential building using a survey questionnaire. The energy audit method collects energy consumption data of academic and non-academic buildings. The saving potential is obtained through energy efficiency and feasibility analysis of the rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) using the net energy metering (NEM) scheme. Research confirms that laboratory equipment, lighting, and air conditioning are the highest consumers of energy consumption in educational institutions. The feasibility analysis focused on energy, cost-benefit and environmental impact analysis for Politeknik Sultan Azlan Shah (PSAS). The findings of this study, through a feasibility analysis on a covered parking lot installed with solar PV. An analysis of the feasibility of energy generation at the proposed site using NEM found that the cumulative net savings estimate for PSAS over 20 years is RM 3,534,250. The percentage of energy supplied by solar, which is 21.5%, leads to a reduction in emissions of 669,078 kg of CO2, equivalent to 16,727 mature trees saved from being cut down. This research supports the practice of green technology in educational institutions, especially in Polytechnic Malaysia
Risk perception and participation intent in China’s domestic tourism sector / Li Jingyi
No full textTravel intention can be described as a customer's perceived likelihood of engaging in actions related to a tourism service, such as taking a trip. In the context of travel and tourism, intention to travel is studied as part of trip planning behaviour, which involves complex and dynamic decision-making processes with multiple interconnected determinants. The nature of tourism makes it susceptible to various risks, especially pandemics that can seriously undermine tourism. Tourists' perception of risk affects their travel intentions. With the spread of COVID-19, tourists are paying greater attention to the risks associated with travel, which may prevent them from traveling abroad. Due to the restricted measures on international travel worldwide, increasingly tourists prefer to choose safer and more convenient ways to travel for leisure purposed. Governments have started to implement strategies for attracting people to travel domestically.
This study aims to understand tourists' travel intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and the Tripartite model of risk perception. An online survey was conducted in China during the pandemic that generated 400 usable responses. Using structural equation modelling, eight hypotheses were developed to evaluate the objectives of the study. The key outcomes of this research are: multidimensional risk perception has a significant influence on attitude and subjective norm. However, multidimensional risk perception did not influence perceived behavioural control, as Chinese people's perceived capability of engaging in domestic travel is not based on perceived risk. The results also show that multidimensional risk perception is positively associated with the intention to engage in domestic tourism. That is, the perception of the likelihood of a threat as a driving factor positively change individual’s behaviour. Moreover, travel intention is positively and significantly correlated with attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control. Attitude and subjective norm are significant mediators in the relationship between multidimensional risk perception and travel intention. However, perceived behavioural control only mediates the relationship between experiential risk perception and travel intention but has a weak effect. Lastly, perceived behavioural control had a moderating effect on the relationship between attitude and travel intention and the relationship between subjective norm and travel intention, meaning that the predictive power of attitude and subjective norm tends to increase with perceived behavioural control.
The novelty of this research lies in the verification of the extended model of TPB with multidimensional risk perception, which has helped deepen our understanding of the TPB model. The study offers both theoretical and empirical contribution to travel behaviour intention research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Theoretically, the study applies the extended TPB model with multiple risk perceptions to fill the gaps found in the tourism risk perception literature. Practically, the study provides valuable insights for the Chinese tourism industry, which has been heavily damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic and can help tourism practitioners develop effective strategies to encourage domestic tourism to support the industry
Estimation of parameters and outlier detection in replicated linear functional relationship model / Azuraini Mohd Arif
No full textThe thesis focuses on parameter estimation especially in the presence of outliers, outlier detection and grouping procedures in a linear functional relationship model (LFRM). There are two categories of LFRM: the unreplicated and replicated model. The study starts by modifying the maximum likelihood estimation method in unreplicated LFRM when the ratio of error variances is equal to one. A robust slope estimator namely the modified maximum likelihood estimation method is proposed. Results from simulation studies show that the modified maximum likelihood estimation method is outlier resistant and performs well than the traditional maximum likelihood estimation method. Then, an improvement on the estimation of the parameters by introducing balanced replicated observations in the LFRM when there is no information about the ratio of error variances is proposed. The estimation of parameters using maximum likelihood estimation method along with the variance-covariance matrix using the Fisher Information matrix is derived. Based on the simulation studies, the estimated values of the parameters are found to be unbiased and consistent. Next is the construction of the robust slope estimator using a 20% trimmed mean based on the nonparametric method. The robustness of this method is compared with the maximum likelihood method for replicated LFRM. Simulation results show that the 20% trimmed mean performs well even the datasets have a high number of outliers. The second part of the study focuses on outlier detection in replicated LFRM using COVRATIO statistic. The cut-off points and the performance of the method are obtained from the simulation study. From simulation results, the cut-off points obtained and power of performance is suggested that the COVRATIO statistic can be used to detect a single outlier in replicated LFRM. The last part of the study concentrates on proposing a practical group method in clustering analysis. The motivation is to transform observation that are of unreplicated data to replicated data. Three clustering methods are considered and simulation studies are used to assess the performance of the parameter estimate of replicated LFRM. The benefits of these approach is that it can be done without making an assumption on the ratio of error variances. The applicability of all proposed methods is illustrated in published datasets
DNA-specific schottky diodes for detecting viruses infection in penaeid shrimp / Chan Yen Yew
No full textDNA-based technology has a broad perspective in different applications such as cryptography, information storage, basic logic gates, nanorobots, nanocircuits and nanomedicine as well as in diagnostic. In aquaculture, especially shrimp farming is facing great challenges in preventing bacterial and viral caused diseases which devastates this blooming food industry. However, such problems could be significantly reduced using effective diagnostic methods. DNA diagnostic techniques involves conventional molecular biology diagnostic technique (PCR, LAMP, qPCR, ELISA etc), while new approaches in DNA biosensor (piezoelectric, optical transducer, thermometric and electrochemical) are still being developing. In this work, potential electronic DNA biosensors for electronically characterizing and detecting selected disease-causing viruses is proposed. DNA Schottky diodes are implemented to identify DNA viruses (MBV, IHHNV, WSSV) and RNA viruses (TSV, YHV) in shrimp industry that poses heavy threat to the aquaculture community. With modification of the architecture of the Schottky diode, Al/ITO/DNA/Al and Cu/DNA/Cu are presented to evaluate the effect of DNA and RNA characterization of the viruses. Acquisition and analysis of the current-voltage (I-V) characterization provides the insight of solid-state parameters of the viruses corresponding to the sequence length and polynucleotide arrangement. In a comparison study, selected bacterial DNA employed in the viral characterization study were observed that viruses and bacteria I-V profile showed distinct band structures using Al/ITO/DNA/Al junction. In the solid-state calculation with conventional diode and Cheung’s models, that bacteria profiles possessed higher series resistance and ideality factor while had lower threshold voltage than viral profiles using Al/ITO/DNA/Al junction. These results suggest that the sequence size and polynucleotide arrangement of the DNA sequence affect rectification and charge transport system of DNA biopolymer. Each DNA-specific Schottky diode generated characteristic I-V profiles similar to a semiconducting behavior. DNA-based Schottky diode biosensor showed the rapid biosensing potential to differentiate pathogens from shrimps as the current diagnostic method involves expensive cost and tedious procedures
Fabrication and characterization of silver nanoparticles on nickel silicide nanowire-based schottky diode for DNA sensing / Nur Fatin Farhanah Nazarudin
No full textIn this work, nickel silicide nanowires (NiSi NWs) were grown using chemical vapour deposition and subsequently decorated with silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) using thermal evaporation in the same vacuum deposition system via a two-step processes. The main objective was to fabricate hybrid heterostructured nanowires for a Schottky-diode-based DNA sensor. The first part of the experiment focused on the growth of NiSi NWs and Ag-NP-decorated NiSi NWs (Ag NPs-NiSi NWs) at different substrate temperatures (ranging from 400 to 520 ºC). From this study, it was found that the physical properties, such as surface morphology and crystal structure, of the hybrid Ag NPs-NiSi NWs were strongly dependent on substrate temperature. The Ag NPs-NiSi NWs produced at substrate temperature of 470 ºC had the highest growth rate and area density of 52.6 ± 16.7 Å/s and 12,713.2 ± 230.8 counts/cm2, respectively, with a high density of assembled Ag NPs (~13.7 ± 1.5 nm in diameter) on the NWs’ surface. It is worth noting that the hybrid heterostructured Ag NPs-NiSi NWs demonstrated a significant enhancement in their localised surface plasmon resonance, with a strong absorption band in the optical region at around 420 nm and enhanced electrical conductivity. In the second part, Schottky diodes based on the sandwiched structure of deoxyribonucleic acid with metal, which was DNA/NiSi NWs and DNA/Ag NPs-NiSi NWs, were fabricated. Currentvoltage (I-V) measurements with response times from 0.08 to 40 minutes at room temperature were performed on the two diodes to investigate their electrical and sensing properties. The grafting and hybridisation of DNA on the NiSi NWs and the Ag NPs-NiSi NWs were investigated as well by studying their surface morphology and optical properties via FESEM analysis, Raman spectroscopy and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy. The obtained results show that the DNA significantly changed the morphologies of the NiSi NWs and the Ag NPs-NiSi NWs. Furthermore, the utilisation of Ag NPs decorated on the NiSi NWs yielded a significant enhancement factor of 103 for the DNA signal in Raman scattering spectra. This enhancement was attributed to the LSPR effect in the visible region at around 396 nm. The electronic properties of the Schottky diodes based on the DNA/NiSi NWs and the DNA/Ag NPs-NiSi NWs demonstrated a rectifying behaviour. Based on the I-V profiles, the diode based on the hybrid heterostructured Ag NPs-NiSi NWs, with turn-on voltage of 0.3 V, ideality factor of 1.4, reverse saturation current of 3.14 × 10-18 A/cm2, series resistance of 22.47 kΩ, and a high rectification ratio of 789013.30, showed higher sensitivity towards DNA compared with the diode based on the DNA/NiSi NWs
Passively Q-switched and mode-locked zirconia Yttria erbium-doped fiber laser / Raja Zaimas Rosdin Raja Rosdin
No full textCost-efficient, robust, and stable pulse laser systems are vital for a wide range of applications ranging from optical communication to sensing. This thesis aims to construct practical Q-switched and mode-locked Zirconia-Yttria Erbium-Doped Fiber Laser (Z-EDFL) operating in 1550 nm region using the new saturable absorbers (SAs). Five new SA devices were successfully explored in this work: gold nanoparticles (GNP), silver nanoparticles (SNP), Bismuth tellurite (Bi2Te3), Thulium doped fiber (TDF) and Bismuth-doped fiber (BiDF). For instance, GNP was prepared through sodium borohydrate reduction method and incorporated into an EDFL cavity to generate Q-switched pulses at 1566.7 nm. The Q-switched EDFL produced self-started pulse train with a repetition rate that is tuned from 8.1 to 18.2 kHz as the 980 nm pump power is increased from 83.6 mW to 153.5 mW. At maximum pump power, the laser produced a Q-switching pulse train with the minimum pulse duration and the maximum pulse energyof 25.8 μs and 87.9 nJ, respectively. By adding 200 m long SMF into the same cavity, a mode-locked nanosecond pulses train was also obtained. The nanosecond pulses operate at 1561.5 nm with pulse duration of 202 ns and a fundamental repetition rate of 1.0 MHz. The maximum pulses energy of 199 nJ was observed at 147.2 mW pump power. Dark pulse generation was also successfully achieved by using Bi2Te3 or BiDF based SA in highly nonlinear EDFL cavity with Z-EDF gain medium. For instance, the laser generated a dark pulse with multi-wavelength emission, centered at 1592.68 nm by exploiting the effect of saturable absorption of Bi2Te3 and high nonlinearity of Z-EDF. The laser operated at pulse repetition frequency of 1.0 MHz with a pulse width of 215 ns. These results indicate that the developed SAs have a great potential for fiber laser applications
OffSig-sinGAN: A deep learning-based image augmentation model for offline signature verification / Muhammad Muzaffar Hameed
No full textOffline signature verification (OfSV) is essential in preventing the falsification of documents. In a real-world scenario, forensic handwriting experts verify offline signatures by visually comparing the suspected with the reference. However, the authenticity of the questioned signature is estimated by evaluating the characteristic features of signatures, their similarities and differences within the suspected and reference samples. Forensic handwriting experts can assess the probability that the evidence under investigation indicates that the questioned signature is an authentic signature used by the reference signer, or the questioned signature is the product of a forgery process with the utilisation of computational methods, such as OfSV systems. Deep learning (DL)-based OfSV systems have recently attained state-of-the-art results in offline signature verification. However, these systems require a large number of signature images to achieve acceptable performance. Nonetheless, only a limited number of signature samples are readily available to train these models in real-world scenarios. Several researchers have proposed models to augment new signature images by applying various transformations. Some have used human neuromotor and cognitive-inspired augmentation models to address the demand for more signature samples. However, such approaches fail to create a considerable number of signatures and to bring any new visual features to improve the network learning ability. Augmenting a sufficient number of signatures with variations is still challenging. Therefore, this study proposed OffSig-SinGAN, which is a deep learning-based image augmentation model to address the limited number of signature problems on offline signature verification. The proposed model can augment several high-quality signature images with diversity from a single signature image only. The quality of augmented signature images is assessed using four metrics which are pixel-by-pixel difference, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and frechet inception distance (FID). Various experiments were conducted to evaluate the proposed image augmentation model's performance on selected DL-based OfSV systems and to prove whether it helped to improve the verification accuracy rate. Experiment results showed that the proposed image augmentation model (OffSig-SinGAN) performed 2.93% better on the GPDSsyntheticSignature dataset than other augmentation methods. The improved verification accuracy rate of the selected DL-based OfSV system proved the effectiveness of the proposed augmentation model
Penyelewengan tafsiran ayat al-Quran dalam saluran Tedx Talk di Youtube: Analisis pemikiran Samina Ali mengenai isu wanita / Nurul Afifah Elias
No full textMedia sosial merupakan sebuah platform penyebaran ilmu dan dakwah serta menjadi medan sumber informasi maklumat abad ini. Kecanggihan teknologi internet sebagai medium perkongsian maklumat merupakan satu cabaran bagi umat Islam kerana fenomena berita palsu kian merebak menjadikan ketulenan dan kesahihan sesebuah maklumat diragui dan perlu diselidik terlebih dahulu. Isu ini menjadi semakin serius apabila berlaku penyelewengan terhadap tafsiran ayat al-Quran di media sosial khususnya seperti di YouTube dengan menyampaikan salah faham yang tersasar dari landasan agama Islam. Justeru, kajian ini akan mengkaji dan menganalisis pandangan Samina Ali tentang penyelewengan ayat al-Quran melalui video What Does the Quran Really Say About a Muslim Woman’s Hijab? yang telah dimuatnaik di laman sesawang YouTube oleh saluran TEDx Talks. Selanjutnya, kajian ini akan menjelaskan biografi Samina Ali dan seterusnya mendedahkan pandangan Samina Ali terhadap isu pemakaian hijab, khimar, jilbab, emansipasi wanita dan patriarki. Metodologi yang digunakan ialah reka bentuk kualitatif menggunakan metode pemerhatian, dokumentasi dan kepustakaan sebagai kaedah pengumpulan data manakala metode induktif, deduktif, deskriptif dan komparatif digunakan bagi kaedah analisis data. Hasil kajian mendapati Samina mempunyai pendapat yang berlainan dan berbeza dengan metodologi dan pemikiran ulama Islam. Samina memahami ayat secara umum dari segi literal dan zahir sahaja tanpa merujuk pandangan ulama dalam isu pemakaian hijab, khimar, jilbab, emansipasi wanita dan patriarki. Oleh itu, masyarakat Islam perlu berhati-hati dengan informasi mengenai ilmu agama Islam di media sosial dengan memastikan maklumat yang disampaikan adalah sahih dan tidak menyeleweng kerana ia dapat memberi implikasi buruk terhadap akidah umat Islam