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The professional skills required to be a successful engineer continue to grow and expand as the engineering disciplines evolve. In the United Kingdom, the Engineering Council has released the latest version of the Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes (AHEP). AHEP4 as it has become known covers a wide range of topics central to engineering disciplines. As well as traditional core professional and subject requirements for engineering this document introduces challenges for the future such as sustainability, EDI, and cybersecurity. In addition, there is an expectation that appropriate digital skills for engineers form part of the toolkit for engineers as they move towards chartered engineering status. This paper discusses the digital skills that will enable engineers to develop their skill set as engineering professionals, enhance their employability by developing digital skills in the context of their engineering specialism and ensure that they have the digital skills to enable their activities to contribute to the betterment of society. In the paper the work done to embed digital skills in the engineering curriculum will be discussed. We will then go on to discuss the work done with engineering employers to identify the digital skills expectations for graduates entering employment and finally how the continued professional development process for digital skills can be embraced as engineers move through their careers. The session will conclude with a discussion on how colleagues from the UK and from Malaysia can work together to develop a framework to support engineers in developing their digital skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to study more about young entrepreneur participation toward halal food industry. Many studies stated that halal food industry demand is growing rapidly in both Malaysia and global. The current situation in Malaysia is precisely targeting the youth to act as organizer and participant in Malaysia halal food industry. The factors which may influence the participation of young entrepreneurs includes job happiness, intention, perception, attitude, social norms, perceived behaviour, and financial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chlorine-based bleaching agent can brighten the pulp effectively, but it harms the environment, especially water pollution. Thus, hydrogen peroxide, a total chlorine-free (TCF) bleaching agent is applied in this research to bleach pulp derived from Sesbania grandiflora. Sesbania grandiflora is being chosen as raw material due to its ideal characteristics as pulp source and native in Malaysia. This research aims to determine the effects of hydrogen peroxide on Sesbania grandiflora pulp and evaluate the paper properties made from Sesbania grandiflora pulp. The research was carried under different bleaching durations, 20 minutes, 40 minutes and 60 minutes under a constant temperature of 50°C and 3% concentration of hydrogen peroxide. The physical, optical and mechanical properties of Sesbania handsheet were measured according to the standard TAPPI. The overall result presented a significant effect on kappa number and handsheet brightness but little on mechanical properties. The longer bleaching duration gave the least kappa number of the Sesbania pulp, thus, improving the brightness of the Sesbania handsheet. However, it did not affect the strength properties of the handsheet. In this research, 60 minutes of bleaching duration on Sesbania grandiflora pulp exhibits the optimal bleaching performance without compromising paper mechanical properties significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods in Malaysia are described as flash floods and monsoon floods by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID). Forecasting is a specialized form of predictive analysis used to predict future trends or behavior from existing data. Weather forecasting predicts the weather in the future from current data circumstances. As flood forecasting models become more accurate, however, their capacity to accurately predict flooding decreased as the forecast continues. Therefore, to understand the different techniques used to forecast flood levels, a systematic review of the literature was conducted. This paper's main objective is to examine the most common variable used to forecast floods, utilizing the systematic review technique. From the main focus, we can identify the research questions, such as the most commonly used prediction method and its accuracy. In the end, two of the most common variables used for flood forecasting are rainfall and water level. This study's data can help others forecast floods using standard variables that yield the best accuracy possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period of substantial economic ambiguity such as recession and economic crisis had urged us to boost the savings rate as people forgo their current consumption expenditure to compensate for an unpredictable financial future. The exigency of saving amid new normal endemic is vital for economic growth and recovery. Hence, this paper is aimed to analyze some macroeconomic factors such as interest rate, inflation rate, household income, government consumption expenditure, and the household final consumption expenditure that can influence the household savings in Malaysia by using the ordinary least square method (OLS). This paper utilizes the secondary data sources from the World Bank Data and Department of Statistics Malaysia over the period from 1999 to 2019. The findings manifest that a new predictor variable which is the government consumption expenditure, as well as the household final consumption expenditure had a negative significant effect on household savings whereas household income and interest rate are known as less significant factors. Nonetheless, inflation rate is found insignificant towards the household savings in Malaysia. Therefore, this paper implies the exploration of factors affecting household savings could be useful to policymakers, investors, and financial advisors to help sustaining the macroeconomic wellbeing and hence raise the standard of living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prevalence of obesity in Malaysia is one of the highest among the Asian countries and it is one of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease which is the main cause of death in Malaysia. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between obesity and mortality rate and find its association with sociodemographic factors such as education and household income. This time-series study used secondary data from World Bank data and Household Income Survey (HIS), and it used annual data from 1990 to 2019. ADF test is used to test the stationarity. Simple linear and multiple linear regression were used in this paper to study the relationship between mortality with obesity, education, and household income. Multicollinearity, heteroskedasticity and R-squared were used to define the best regression model in this study. This study found that mortality was positively associated with obesity. Besides, the findings also shows that there was an inverse relationship between obesity and education, meanwhile positive relationship appears between obesity and household income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia has targeted to achieve 40% of renewable energy (RE) by 2035. It is evident that solar energy shall contribute the largest portion of the target due to the abundant resources of solar in Malaysia. Nevertheless, Malaysia should not limit its' RE resources to only solar energy. This includes RE in the likes of wind energy. Although generally Malaysia has comparatively low annual average wind speed, numerous studies have shown that there are several areas with relatively higher annual average wind speed. These areas may potentially be considered for wind energy development. Several methodologies have been utilized by researchers to identify such areas. Several researchers opted to develop wind maps to identify the potential area in Malaysia for wind energy development. Interpolation methods such as Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) and Kriging are commonly utilised in wind mapping studies as these methods are effective to estimate the wind speed at unmeasured area. This paper reviews the comparison between the wind speed interpolation methods which are IDW and Kriging for wind energy applications in Malaysia. Among the interpolation parameters compared include input, results and validation. The way forward proposed by this paper will aid as a reference for future advances in wind mapping in Malaysia and its surrounding region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID 19 disease has spread worldwide, disrupting the economy, society, education, and health. It became crucial to understand the transmission curve and identify the best action in combating this highly transmissible epidemic. Epidemiological parameters of the deterministic Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model are widely used in explaining the characteristics and behavior of the disease spreading. Disease like COVID-19 is highly influenced by the uncontrolled factors of randomness, hence in this paper, the deterministic susceptible-infected-recovered-death (SIRD) model is extended to the stochastic SIRD (SSIRD) model. SSIRD model takes into consideration the noisy behavior of the process which explains the uncontrolled effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. The epidemiological parameter of the model changes throughout the epidemic due to external factors such as enforcement and public obedience to the control measures as well as the changes in healthcare facilities. These parameters need to be estimated. This paper estimates the epidemiological parameters of the SSIRD model using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method of the Metropolis Hasting algorithm. The COVID-19 data from Malaysia and Indonesia are used and the dynamical behavior of the COVID-19 outbreak in both countries is simulated. The results show the parameter changing due to the uncontrolled factors influencing the trend of the pandemic curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift from paper-based to web-based practice is a significant trend, as paper-based practice consumes time, is prone to error, and is more prone to data loss, all of which lead to inefficiency. Smart farming or agriculture 4.0 defined the new era of agriculture that moving toward digitalization. However, the absence of a centralized information system, which results in information asymmetry among agricultural sectors. One of the keys to success is reaching out to farmers with pertinent agricultural information at the appropriate time and platform. The purpose of this study is to design and create a dynamic web-based knowledge management system for the dissemination of agricultural knowledge in Malaysia. A centralized information system capable of achieving information symmetry, in which all important information is accessible to all participants. Creating an advanced learning environment allowing for virtual engagement between external and internal stakeholders via a web-based knowledge management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States and China are strong trading partners of Malaysia, with about 23% of total exports in 2017. Therefore, the trade war pressures since 2018 between the United States and China have affected the Malaysian economy. Thus, this paper aims to analyse the effects of the war on the Malaysian stock market using a threshold network approach. Then, the networks examine the changes of important stocks before, during and after the trade war in which the periods are taken from 16th March 2017 until 31st May 2021. The important stocks are determined by four standard centrality approaches, namely degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality. This paper uses 240 companies of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Emas Index to create the Malaysian stock market networks. The results show that Dagang Nexchange Berhad and Jaya Tiasa Holdings Berhad have higher connectivity with other stocks during the turmoil period and after the turmoil period respectively. Besides, Dagang Nexchange Berhad acts as the most important stock according to all centrality measures. The findings of this study give an insight to the government regulators and investors with information regarding the current topological structure of Malaysia's stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals must begin saving money early to meet their future personal and household needs. It is important to focus on savings as soon as possible to achieve a healthy and stable economy after retirement. Retirement expectations can be unrealistic since many believe retirement is still a long way off. Insufficient money made it difficult for people, particularly B40 groups in Malaysia, to continue their monthly savings due to a restricted budget in the face of rising living costs. The majority of the B40 group in Malaysia are struggling with the issue of not having enough money to support the desired lifestyle after retirement, and this issue has deteriorated over time. This concept paper proposes financial literacy, future expectations, self-awareness, social influence, and financial management as predictive factors for the B40 group to plan for their retirement savings, applying the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and supported by prior studies. Due to this interest, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for the factors affecting the retirement decisions of B40 groups in Malaysia. The suggested framework could benefit all, especially B40 groups, in term of how they prepare themselves for retirement life. Related organizations can use the proposed model to encourage early retirement savings among Malaysians, especially the B40 group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety procedures at highways are essential to ensure safe, clean and accessible roads and highways. The workers were often exposed to hazardous situations, as seen by numerous accidents involving highway workers on the road in recent years. Safety technologies in the highway construction work zone may help improve the roadway construction and maintenance workers' safety. This paper reviews the statistics of road accidents in Malaysia, highway work zone safety problems and existing applications of safety sensor systems as an improvement of safety technology in the construction work zones. As an improvement towards the safety technology, Signal Warning Detector (SWAD) system was developed to increase the safety at highway work zone especially on PLUS highways in Malaysia. The development of the SWAD system's parameter setting was discussed later in the methodology section of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, numerous theoretical models were introduced to explore the interaction between psychosocial factors and mental health. This paper systematically reviews previous research on the interaction of psychosocial factors with mental health among workers in Malaysia. A comprehensive systematic literature review was performed using PRISMA protocol through electronic databases including Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions.ai, and ProQuest. The search included articles published between the years of 2017 to 2021. A total of 18 articles was found to offer appropriate evidence towards psychosocial factors and their relationship with mental health among workers in Malaysia. Prevalence of mental health among workers was documented between 10% to 100%. The identified psychosocial factors were high job demands, poor social support, workplace bullying, shift work, job insecurity, working overtime, discrimination at work, financial support issue, and work-family conflict. This review provides a fundamental understanding of the association between perceived psychosocial factors on the workers' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the oil and gas industry, managing large quantities of produced water on a daily basis as the production blocks mature over time can be challenging, alarming for an effective and equally efficient treatment system to be embarked. A great solution would be to transform the produced water into a solar pond. Salt-gradient solar ponds (SGSP) are capable of storing large amounts of heat that could be used for producing electricity. Studies relevant to sodium bicarbonate solar ponds and its corresponding low-grade energy harvest are still at a pioneering stage, particularly in Malaysia. Thus, this paper investigates possible techniques and approaches to optimize thermal efficiency of solar ponds, using simulated produced water with high sodium bicarbonate content for power generation. It was determined that the best time to acquire the highest lower convective zone (LCZ) temperature is between 12 to 3 pm, when sun peaks right above the head. Also, addition of 18.8 litres of hydrochloric acid (HCl) had significantly reduced the pH and turbidity level of the pond, removing algae while improving solution clarity and heat storage at LCZ. Utilization of neoprene rubber sheet and black soil as insulators had proven to optimize the solar pond thermal efficiency, yielding highest LCZ temperature of 52.3°C with a maximum temperature difference of 18°C. Besides, the application of thermoelectric generator (TEG) to convert heat energy into sensible power output was explored through simple laboratory-scaled design and set-up, where a total of eight TEG modules were required to produce 0.28W of electricity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to classify Malaysian drivers' driving styles (DS) using the Multidimensional Driving Styles Inventory (MDSI). Previously, an MDSI study was performed in Malaysia but was not carried out using the native language. In this study, 430 respondents participated, and the MDSI data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The Malaysian driving style profile distribution was then determined using the three methods: sum scores by the factor, weighted sum scores, and Barlett's method. Besides, the differences between the sociodemographic variables for the proposed driving styles were also reported. The results revealed five Malaysian driving style factors: careful, risky, angry-impatient, dissociative, and anxious. The sociodemographic variables' results significantly affect careful, risky, angry-impatient, and anxious driving styles. This study indicates that Malaysian MDSI provides valid measures and useful instruments to classify the types of driving styles in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia is now ready to adopt Industry 4.0 as a vital tool for transitioning to a new industry. The major focus of this article is on Industry 4.0's challenges and benefits. Inadequate time and effort, higher investment, lack of expertise and knowledge, and lack of internet coverage and IT facilities are some of the challenges associated with adopting Industry 4.0. Many other benefits of Industry 4.0 implementation include higher productivity, increased competitiveness, increased opportunities for collaborative working and knowledge sharing, cost reduction, flexibility and agility, and improved customer experience. As a result, this article contributes to a more realistic knowledge of Industry 4.0. As a final note, this paper offers some directions for firms wishing to implement Industry 4.0 with great success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of the greatest number of people into the formal financial system is one of the fundamental motivations behind Islamic financial principles. Following the Global Financial Crisis, Islamic finance was able to overcome its financial losses and maintain its stability. Islamic insurance (Takaful) has served its communal responsibility well for enabling society during the crisis through postponement of premium contributions and continuous protection. This element translates into Islamic insurance integrating social finance instruments. However, the existing financial inclusion index is mainly built based on the banking perspective. The paper aspires to model the role of Islamic insurance in the Financial Inclusion Index in Malaysia. The proposed model to investigate this issue is by using a two-stages Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The benefit of this analysis includes reducing the dimensionality of the data, thus enabling us to better generalise the interpretation of the financial inclusion index. The constructed Takaful products-integrated financial inclusion index would allow policymakers to better assess the state of financial inclusion in Malaysia, thereby formulating more targeted and effective policies in the effort to enhance financial inclusiveness in Malaysia. The society, of which more than half are practicing Islam and especially those in the rural areas, would benefit from greater financial well-being when the emphasis is given to Takaful products to give them access to the financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on the relationship between income inequality and mortality by states in Malaysia. Even though there are several persuasive evidences to support the association between income inequality and mortality, research in this field is still progressing. This study aims to develop a new mortality model that incorporates the income inequality variable and subsequently to forecast the mortality rates for Malaysia until 2024. The data used are Gini Index and mortality rates for each state of Malaysia which are extracted from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) from 2007 to 2018. Using the Pearson correlation coefficient, this study identifies the effects and significant level of income inequality on mortality for each state in Malaysia respectively. This study extends the Lee-Carter mortality model by including the new variable of income inequality factor to estimate the mortality rates. Next, ARIMA model is used to forecast the mortality rates from 2016-2024. Results show that almost all states in Malaysia experience positive relationship between income inequality and mortality. This indicates that most states in Malaysia which have higher value of the age component relative to Gini Index would positively affect the mortality experience significantly. The extended Lee-Carter model is deemed to fit the mortality rates better as compared to the original model. The forecasted results show that children and elderly are expected to have lower mortality rates as compared to adults. This study provides better understanding on the effect of income inequality on mortality and produces a reliable mortality forecasts reflecting the income inequality factor for Malaysian population. The development of new mortality model can benefit actuaries in pricing the insurance and annuity products appropriately and strengthen the social security and public health of Malaysia effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As widely known, plastic has become an integral element of human culture. Despite posing a serious environmental hazard, plastic continuously used in a variety of domains ranging from industries to agriculture to our daily lives due to its lightness, sturdiness, inertness, and low cost. Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) is the thermoplastic that are commonly used to manufacture plastics bags and other plastic products. However, the excessive use of LDPE has caused a major environmental problem when they are accumulated in the environment. Currently, the physical and chemical methods of plastic degradation was proved to be inefficient and posed other environmental issues. As a result, eco-friendly methods like microbial plastic decomposition are being pursued as a better solution. This paper reports the potential ability of a Malaysian Rhodococci isolate obtained from Unisel Culture Collection (UCC), the Rhodococcus pyridinovoran strain UCC0018 in.LDPE biodegradation. The bacterium was cultured in nutrient broth supplemented with LDPE fine strips to evaluate the degradation of LDPE by weight reduction test. Results obtained demonstrated degradation activity where it reduced the weight of LDPE strips up to 5.2% after 24 hours of incubation. This result indicated the promising potential of Malaysian Rhodococcus in degrading LDPE. Based on this discovery, the initiative intends to cultivate the bacteria in large quantities, optimize the degradation activity, and work with the industry to turn the bacteria into a product that can be utilized to address Malaysia's plastic waste problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding heritage food is important and useful for planning of national identity conservation, gastronomy tourism marketing and food safety. However, research on heritage food is not uniform globally; it tends to be concentrated in specific areas or region, and thus would hinder our understanding of heritage food acceptance, marketability and sustainability. This study examined the trends in heritage food research, namely Pekasam over the past decade by analysing publication data from Scopus through Systematic Literature review method. In particular, this study focused on the countries in which the studies were done, the affiliation of the authors, the funding sponsor, the types of publication discipline area of research, and citation details. A total of 148 publications were examined. The results showed that research on heritage food of Pekasam is not only scarce, to such an extent a large number of the research published are in the discipline of agriculture, chemistry and engineering. Despite the small number of research publications on Pekasam, the citations on the existing publications have grown exponentially since 2017 indicating that Pekasam is a potential research topic in the area of heritage food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once German Government had declared their Industry 4.0 strategy, many countries also followed suit to set their aim on promoting the manufacturing computerization in their country. However, there is a gap between the existing machines and the technology advances in Industry 4.0 such as cloud computing, internet of things, system integration and etcetera. The lack of experience to develop the industry 4.0 infrastructure is also one of the major obstacles in the developing countries. The aim of this paper is to address the challenges of implementing industry 4.0 Technology in machine-based manufacturing for small and medium companies. This paper focuses on Malaysia's Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that are undergoing Industry 4.0 transformation in order to serve as a reference for other developing countries like Malaysia in which a lot of SMEs are facing similar challenges. Based on the literature review and real cases in collaboration with companies in the industry, the challenges of data collection and system interoperability as well as the solutions are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a hybrid rule-based machine learning approach to produce a student profiling model for University Selangor (UNISEL) a state-owned private higher education institution in Malaysia. This project attempts to address UNISEL's interest by proposing a student profiling model that can assist in predicting student intake using existing data from a survey conducted by UNISEL among its current students. Maintaining a healthy student intake is vital to ensure the continuity of any private educational institution. Hence, this research aims to predict student intake towards academic entrance in UNISEL based current data profile using hybrid rule-based methods subject to past student intake data to improve better decision-making process. The two algorithm that had been selected using the hybrid rule-based machine learning approach combines rule-based (i.e., expert system) with multi-level machine learning (i.e., K-Mode's clustering and decision tree classification) to produce the final student profiler model. This paper first outlines the assumptions made before dividing the proposed approach into five main phases: data cleaning, feature extraction and selection, model formulation and model testing. Results shows that the project managed to propose a creative workaround that suited the use-case presented to produce the student profiler model in predicting student intake in UNISEL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism industry has become an important sector for Malaysian economy through foreign exchange earnings and employment opportunities where generally increases the economic development of the country. Due to significant effect to Malaysia economy, it motivated us to come up with the best model for forecasting both outbound and inbound tourists in Malaysia. Hence, this paper aims to develop the best model for forecasting outbound and inbound tourists in Malaysia by using Box-Jenkins SARIMA model and multilayer feedforward neural network (MFNN) model. The dataset used was monthly basis, recorded from January 2010 to December 2019, and was split into in-sample data from January 2010 to December 2017 and out-sample data from January 2018 to December 2019. The accuracy of the models was measured by using MAPE. By applying SARIMA and MFNN to the dataset, results shown MFNN model is more accurate than the SARIMA model to forecast outbound and inbound tourists in Malaysia. The paper provides implications for policy makers and suggestions for future tourism forecasting models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Malaysia, sustainable development is getting momentum within organizations, businesses, and even communities. In Higher Education, we can observe that green initiatives have been taken on campus, although community awareness is still at an average level. As a result, the emphasis of this study was on UTMSPACE community's green environmental awareness, which included their study location at the UTM Kuala Lumpur campus. The introduction to this study and the concerns that arise will be the first section of this paper's structure. The literature review on green awareness, initiatives, and motivation will be covered in the second half of this study. A preliminary investigation was conducted among Diploma students in SPACE UTM Kuala Lumpur. The goal of the first inquiry is to determine the green awareness among the students. According to the poll, 132 students took part in the short online survey. We quizzed them on their thoughts of green awareness implementation, and the results of the analysis were presented in a descriptive manner. We suggest student involvement activity based on preliminary research to improve environmental awareness among the UTMSPACE community by engaging in green environment initiatives. However, because to the Covid-19 pandemic, a variety of green environmental actions can be undertaken or implemented. As a result, in the methodology section of this study, we propose a mobile application design to ensure that green awareness activities are practicable and at a constant pace, in order to ensure social distancing and activities can be done by individuals. As a result, in order to achieve this goal, we created a mobile application to raise green awareness among the campus community, which we will demonstrate at the end of this paper. The content of the mobile apps will be structured using aspects from the UI World Universities Ranking Based on Green Metric and UTM Sustainable Campus's sustainability project area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) expands globally, international competition rises, thus, requiring the industry to be steadfast in its efforts to be at par with other international players within the nation. To overcome this, it is with the view that the help of technological digitalisation in construction is deemed significant throughout a project‟s cradle-to-cradle lifecycle. Building Information Modelling (BIM) in its application has been widespread within the construction scene. The technological adoption, nonetheless, brought about challenges to the present method of the construction process. In addition, organisations face difficulties in embracing the innovative revolution of digitalisation due to the present legalese which was made for conventional construction processes. Existing contractual solutions do not identify facilitation towards BIM‟s specific roles, processes and outcomes. Therefore, the paper is aimed to ascertain setbacks particularly legal issues brought about by the usage of BIM within the construction industry worldwide against Malaysia. The paper undergoes an investigation of past publications worldwide through a narrative literature review in uncovering the scepticism and a lack of enthusiasm for its adoption. The study found eleven variables within four main themes on contractual issues surrounding BIM. The identification of these issues, hence, would further assist in the contractual status of BIM within the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Malaysian construction industry, the Bumiputera contractors held special benefits, among others, a special policy on the allocation for participation in public projects. However, failure amongst Bumiputera contractors in delivering the project according to specifications has become an issue for the Government and there is a need to address the issue. There are various ways to improve the contractor's performance, among other initiatives are training and development and thus it is essential to look into these aspects to find a solution to the problem in the construction industry. The scope of this paper is limited to Bumiputera contractors attending training programs by PKK. Questionnaire surveys were distributed to a sample of 350 Bumiputera contractors physically and online. 269 questionnaires were received, covering five different regions in Malaysia. This paper analyses four (4) major aspects which are significant in addressing the impact and importance of training towards contractors' development and organizational performance concerning the industry requirement. Subsequently, a list of elements related to each aspect is ranked according to importance based on the survey which is important to be included in designing the training and development modules for contractors. All the findings lead to the establishment of a preliminary framework of training and development. Among the major recommendations is toconduct a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) to find the best direction for content and structure in the Bumiputera contractors' training and development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TVET is the key to Malaysia's future as an advanced nation. The supplies for the local skilled workers are in very high demand, especially for the construction industry from these TVET graduates. Past research has found that self-efficacy is a critical factor for graduates' career success. However, the self-efficacy among these TVET graduates is questionable. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a systematic narrative review on the effect of self-efficacy on academic perseverance and career pursuance among TVET graduates. The literature finds there are relationships between self-efficacy among the factors (i.e., motivation and outcome expectations). The findings of this paper are expected to explore and contribute to the understanding of self-efficacy from the perspective of education, training, and the working environment for the TVET graduates. Thus, it will form the foundation for an extended investigation to propose TVET Capability Approach Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture and heritage are two significant components that need to be understood and appreciated by key stakeholders such as local authorities, residents, users, etc., within rural and urban development. Having reliable and holistic data on a particular culture and heritage, including taking the local wisdom of a community into account, could help in understanding the community and developing a meaningful place for the present and future generations. Whereas local communities arrange, practise, comprehend, and apply a system of values and norms based on their knowledge of and experience with interacting with the environment is referred as local wisdom. It is very instrumental in interior design and can also be integrated into designing a space. To preserve tangible and intangible cultural assets, cultural mapping is used to understand a place and is also a fundamental issue in any redevelopment projects. This paper takes Zhongshan Building to study the local social-cultural identity elements of The Zhongshan Building, which are reflected in the interior environmental design. In this paper, the author focused on examining the application of local wisdom in interior design that is connected to the design development. To carry out the goal of this paper, the two-method methodology was conducted; (a) desk research, and (b) a SWOT Analysis. On the other hand, a pilot survey of the respondents is also required to complete this study, and the result shows that the respondents do acknowledge The Zhongshan Building as a creative hub. Through the discussion of this paper, The Zhongshan Building plays a vital role in portraying the creative culture as a creative hub in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The strength of the interior environment and the significance of local wisdom on site can re-defined the meaning of the building and show the identity of The Zhongshan Building. For future reference, this paper suggests that any research instruments for future data collection in heritage buildings should be considered significant without ignoring the elements of the local wisdom of a community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural land development focuses on settlements and agricultural areas are crucial to be managed efficiently. This paper highlights the FELDA settlement area as in Malaysia FELDA has become an established organization that manages both the rural settlements and the crop areas well. The Felda scheme has changed the lives of landless residents by providing housing, employment, income from agribusiness shareholders, and the ownership of valuable land titles. Improving productivity and the quality of rural settlement and crop area plantation operation is one of the most difficult challenges and groundwork. Therefore, determining the highest and best use and ensuring the sustainability of the development needs to be catered for. This paper will conceptualize the elements essential for SHBU, and then, from the SHBU model, it will further develop the assessment of land suitability for crops and other land uses. This shows that the framework can assist in determining the highest and best use of the available land. The findings can be implemented in other rural areas within other agencies concerned with managing and developing rural and regional areas, such as RISDA, FELCRA, UDA and other rural development agencies in Malaysia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) and TENORM (Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) were introduced in Government Regulation No. 33 Year 2007 as part of the chronic exposure situation. The supervision on NORM and TENORM has changed in recent years. Despite the dynamics of development during this period, the focus of supervision is concentrated minerals contain radioactive. This paper aims to identify the concept of dose assessment in the supervision of radioactive concentrated minerals. The methodology used in this paper is a literature study of regulations, international recommendations, and practices from the other countries. The activity concentration of uranium and thorium decay series, and potassium remains the main basis for supervision. The practice of Australia and Malaysia, as well as the IAEA recommendations use the concept of a graded approach. The activity concentration as a basic starting point for the next assessment process. Dose assessment means an assessment of an individual or group of people. Dose assessment should take into account the various possible exposure pathway scenarios from the source to the receptor. The exposure pathway and number of exposure scenarios depends on the variety of scenarios from location and operation/activity. Some of these variations will provide a level of difficulty in developing exposure scenarios. Dose assessment can be done by comparison of measured radionuclide concentrations to reference levels, spreadsheet analysis using dose coefficient tables, or computer modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As globalization intensifies, knowledge as a vital competitive asset is becoming more and more important. Managing knowledge is becoming a must in light of this scenario. In Malaysia, the awareness of knowledge management is growing in various organizations. However, the practice of knowledge management is still in the infant stage, comprehensive review of academic literature on knowledge management in the context of Malaysia is scare and fragmented. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a systematic literature review to investigate the research trend of knowledge management and identify the future directions from the perspective of Malaysia. Through a comprehensive content analysis to the 55 articles from Scopus database. The results show that the research interest has been a slight increase in recent several years, but the number of publications on knowledge management in the context of Malaysia was very small compared with worldwide. The findings also indicated that the research on knowledge management involves all industries, including business activities, government organizations and agencies, social life and healthcare and education. The most research publications focused on business field. In addition, seven categories of research topics identified by an in-depth analysis. Moreover, a variety of qualitative and quantitative research techniques like Delphi method, Canonical Action Research, and Observation were used in this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability has been a significant concern in development and construction upon the rising environmental issues around the globe. As such, efforts have been made to come up with sustainable construction via the invention of sustainable housing. The sustainable concept is extended to housing as demand for sustainability development for energy saving. However, high prices of houses have been denoted as an issue in the housing industry. As conventional development is already associated with high costs and high prices, houses with sustainable features are offered and sold at even higher prices. This worsens affordability, which is already a problem in Malaysia. This paper explores sustainable affordable housing via a combination review of issues and challenges. This investigation sets to accomplish two objectives. Firstly, it includes studying issues concerning sustainable affordable housing. The second objective covers a detailed identifying the challenges of implementing sustainable affordable housing and gaps of this area of study around the globe. This paper structurally investigates the literature from valid databases and eminent journals from 2004 to 2018 in matters related to issues and challenges sustainable affordable housing. As very limited work has been carried out in the areas of issues and challenges of implementing sustainable affordable housing, this paper fills this knowledge gap in the context of a structured review. The findings of the research are critically discussed in light of the literature. In conclusion, the commitment of an organization or construction industry and the government will lead to actions that will accelerate the move towards sustainable development of the housing sector, especially affordable housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-destructive testing (NDT) module is an alternative instructional course developed and provided in the industry since the techniques have become more attractive in science and engineering. There is a demand to integrate the NDT instructions module into the university curriculum. This paper proposes integrating courses and other elements into the bachelor's curriculum at the universities level. The method has looked into three countries that established NDT programs at the University's level, e.g., Germany, Singapore, and Ukraine, where the guidelines from the NDT program structure were referred. The findings and concepts are different from the well-known courses offered in the private non-academic industrial company. Other than the application, it should address the development of new techniques and applications in a research-driven environment. While distorted elements of NDT are included in most programs at universities in Malaysia, it is uncoordinated. There is a close relation to topics like measuring techniques, data mining, and statistics, and the first elements of NDT can be integrated into Bachelor courses. This paper summarizes relevant scholarly articles, identifies methods and ideas, and the need for further action leads to recommendations for an NDT curriculum design. Thus, some references to structure NDT courses in universities are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's rare earth elements from saprolite are highly potential to be recovered as an alternative resource to China's rare earth supply due to its high concentration of non-radioactive rare earth elements source. Separation of high-purity lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), and yttrium (Y) obtained from Malaysian sources required multi-stages of solvent extraction (SX) and a multi-separation circuit. A massive number of multi-stage fractional SX is necessarily attributable to the similarity of physiochemical properties between the adjacent elements. Process design, data analysis, and prediction of process behavior of rare earth element extraction are multifaceted tasks. Process simulation is an ideal candidate for this complex task. The application of Xu's cascade extraction principles for process simulation of separation of La, Ce, Pr, Nd, and Y was discussed in this paper. A simulation model of HDEHP-HCl cascade fractional SX had been used to simulate the recovery of the elements from Malaysia saprolite. All the process properties, estimation of separation stages, purity, and recovery behavior were determined by Xu's cascade extraction principles. Process simulation results mapped out the space-feasible cascade fractional SX circuits and identified the optimal design parameter required to achieve the targeted purity and recovery. Material distribution and balance tables were used to evaluate the separation of the elements in each stage from the initial stage to the final stage. The production output was measured by predicting the output of the extraction of La, Ce, Pr, Nd, and Y. Even though it lacked an optimization attribute, it is crucial to get an insight into the recovery worthiness of the elements from a particular source. The process simulation predicted the separation stages (extraction and scrubbing stages), the recovery behavior of each circuit, and the production output of La, Ce, Nd, Pr, and Y. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rain attenuation is significantly affecting the FSO performance of a free-space optical communication system. Kuching/Samarahan region is situated in Malaysia state which is under tropical climate zone. The rain distribution is recorded high due to having rain season year-round. It worst when turn to monsoon season where the precipitation rate is expected high and dense. It is crucial to design the effect FSO system to ensure good quality transmission beam signal. This paper is focus on Kuching/Samarahan zone as the preliminary result to investigate the rain pattern and effect over FSO propagation. The investigation it focuses on that region is due to development that area to implement fully digital economy which need supported by high speed and capacity data that can be produced by optical technology. Therefore, FSO technology can perform this task. The rain data is collected from Malaysia Meteorology Department (Met Malaysia) which for three years 2017, 1018 and 2019. The performance will measure the effect of scattering coefficient, rain attenuation and geometrical loss. It is expected heavy rain will contribute the great impact over FSO link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused severe repercussions that has affected many lives in Malaysia especially university or college students who still struggle with studying in the ongoing pandemic which physical distancing and quarantine are in place. Most of the educational institutions in the world were closed and the teaching and learning activities were placed online. Students have been severely impacted both physically and mentally, as some students are unable to manage their time for academic work due to a lack of motivation caused by online learning and other factors. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media and time management during the pandemic for students and to develop a mobile app to assist students who are facing time management issues or social isolation during this pandemic. This paper presents the architecture and the tools being used to develop the mobile app. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leptospirosis, as a potential worldwide public health problem, has been a notifiable disease in Malaysia since 2010. This paper aims to establish an epidemic model for the outbreak of leptospirosis, so as to better understand the dynamic trend of leptospirosis and provide theoretical basis for the government and health departments to formulate corresponding prevention and control policies. In this study, we proposed the SIR hybrid optimization model of leptospirosis based on Runge-Kutta fourth order (RK4) method, and obtained the simulation results of the outbreak process of leptospirosis from 2012-2013 to 2031-2032, and compared the results with actual data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Malaysia has been facing an alarming situation of municipal solid waste (MSW) issue that is becoming worse to date. Population growth is causing Malaysians to also have increasing domestic waste generation that has exceeded 200,000 tons per month. Management systems for waste disposal is very limited, and the main approach in Malaysia is landfilling which has many problems including little to no leachate treatment. This paper presents a proposal to add benefit to the MSW to be a new precursor to produce activated carbon that can be used to replace non-renewable fuels such as coal and crude oil as a precursor, for leachate treatment. In this study, the composition of MSW used were 77.6% organics and food waste, and 22.4% plastics. The proximate analysis shows that the MSW is suitable to be used as a precursor to produce activated carbon due to its high carbon content which is 45%. Physical activation method was implemented by heating the MSW-derived carbon using CO2 gas at 700 – 900°C. After activation, morphology of the MSW-derived activated carbon indicates a presence of pore structure. From this study, it has been observed that the higher the activation temperature, the greater the surface area and pore volume of the MSW-derived activated carbon. The average pore size of MSW-derived activated carbon was less than 5 nm, that would be able to filter out heavy metals found in the leachate which has an average diameter of 10 nm, hence suitable to be used for leachate treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we empirically test the factors which affect investors' intention to adopt robo-advisory services in Malaysia. Multiple regression method is used. We found significant relationship between transparency, relative advantage, social influence, and perceived usefulness and the intention to adopt of robo-advisory services in Malaysia. However, there is no significant relationship between effort expectancy and intention to adopt robo-advisory services in Malaysia. Our results are consistent with previous similar research which showed a positive relationship between social influence and relative advantage with the intention to adopt of new technologies. In addition, our results could provide some insights into the robo-advisory services' market in Malaysia in order to further understand what encourages Malaysian investors' intention to adopt this new technology as well as how this technology can be adjusted to improve the adoption rate among Malaysian investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of COVID-19 on the capital structure of publicly listed firms in Malaysia. Using panel data regressions and total debt as proxy for capital structure, we study the relation between the leverage and asset tangibility, firm size, market to book value, liquidity, profitability, growth opportunity together with crisis dummies where it is built based on a sample of 478 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia within industrial products & services, consumer products & services, property, construction, energy, health care, plantation, technology, telecommunications & media, and transportation & logistics industries before and during COVID-19 pandemic for the period of 2016-2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studied the impact of COVID-19 on SME. We study the impact of COVID-19 in terms of demand, supply, employment, long term financing and short-term financing. Survival strategies for SME during COVID-19 are also incorporated in this study. To study the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs empirically, primary data will be collected using questionnaires and will be analysed by quantitative approach. The sample size of research is targeted to achieve 384 respondents. Methods used for data collection of this research are mainly adapted questionnaires which are sourced from the public documents of the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's standard operating procedure forbids the provision of Muslimah prayer outfits in public prayer facilities to minimize the risk of the COVID-19 virus spread among the shared-outfits users. The reuse of personal prayer outfits, overcrowding and spending longer in public prayer facilities can also increase the risk of fomite and airborne transmission by people with the virus. Thus, a Muslimah prayer outfit that forbids the spread of infectious diseases is crucially important. This paper presents a prayer gown that is made of disposable materials. Making efficient use of material, the gown is designed to be a single piece, comfortable and low cost. Besides the shari'ah-compliance features (reasonably thick fabric, black colour, elastic sleeves cuff and face opening), the prayer outfit provides a feasible solution to curb the transmission of contagious diseases amongst the prayers. It also serves as a gateway toward safe and easy travel for Muslim women. Introducing the disposable prayer gown helps achieve the perfect balance of the health, economic and social challenges of COVID-19 and other contagious illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water is vital supporting resource for sustainable development of social, health and economics part of human being. Measuring the efficiency of water supply service is very important as the demands of water supply are increasing as the year passes due to the growing in population. Improving the efficiency of water supply service is also an economically viable way for water preservation. The studies of the water service performance measurement have been widely conducted by earlier researchers primarily using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA has been established as an effective method to measure relative efficiency of homogeneous entities which are known as decision making units (DMUs). The main advantage is that DEA has the ability to manage multiple inputs and outputs. However, standard DEA has some disadvantages and one of them is not being able to discriminate and rank those efficient units. Standard DEA can only classify DMUs into two categories generally named as efficient and inefficient units and consequently, not being able to provide full ranking of DMUs. Ranking the water service provider are necessary and important for every state so that necessary changes can be made in making future improvements. The Method for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is a standard decision-making approach with multiple characteristics that are commonly used for decision-making. The advantages of the TOPSIS method are it is easy to be practiced and it allows the best alternative criteria to be attained in a simple mathematical form. This paper proposed a hybrid approach based on DEA and TOPSIS techniques to overcome the problem of ranking which arise in standard DEA in evaluating the efficiency and ranking of the 14 state of water service provider in Malaysia. The result shows the availability of the application of the hybrid method in providing full ranking for Malaysian water service provider as there is no states shares the equal efficiency result as well as their ranking places as compared to the classical DEA method. Inefficient state then will be able to perform benchmarking process from the efficient state to make future improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficiency in the stock market is an essential component of the capital allocation system and is crucial in promoting economic growth. In recent years, there has been a growing number of publications focusing on the effect of Covid-19 on human norms. Although there are many studies on the impact of Covid-19 on human norms, the empirical implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on financial markets are still poorly understood. This paper adds to the literature by discussing the effects of a pandemic by studying the stock market efficiency before and after the first case of Covid-19 hit Malaysia. Several robust techniques are utilised to validate the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), namely Ljung-box, Hurst exponent, Chow-denning, and Variance ratio tests. Results indicate a strong influence of Covid-19 on the stock movement. The returns are efficient for the overall sample period. However inefficient after the global pandemic. The findings reported here suggest an increasing chance for market predictability in the Malaysian stock market during the global Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, majority of universities in Malaysia commonly implement the teaching and learning practices on physical face to face basis. However, the pandemic had drastically changed the norm of the teaching and learning practices into online teaching and learning as one of the measures to curb the spread of the virus among the community. The drastic move had greatly affected the academic communities particularly the students. Some of the possible factors influencing online learning difficulties faced by the students include poor internet accessibility, lack of self-motivation, lack of active interaction with lecturers and peers, lack of conducive learning environment and poor time management. In this paper, the technique of Fuzzy DEMATEL is employed in analyzing the level of influence and relationships of the aforementioned factors in contributing to learning difficulties particularly among fifty mathematic students at a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. The cause-and-effect analysis that take into consideration the interactions or interrelationships between factors discovered that poor internet accessibility was classified in the cause group whereas the remaining factors which are lack of self-motivation, lack of active interaction with lecturers and peers, lack of conducive learning environment and poor time management were in the effect group. The results indicate that poor internet accessibility has the highest degree of relation in terms of influencing other factors. Based on the prominence value, the lack of self-motivation turns out to be the leading factor contributing to online learning difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of March 2022, there have been 3,116,564 infections and 32,827 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began on 1st March 2022. This drastic increase in numbers has been alarming everyone. Malaysia has successfully handled the first and second waves of the COVID-19 cases. However, the recent wave of omicron variants in Malaysia sees a massive increase in COVID-19 infections. Therefore, forecasting plays a vital role in determining preparedness for the current pandemic. This study aims to understand the behaviour of the current infection trend and provide valuable information to the authority to prevent future spikes of active cases. In this paper, the SIR model (Susceptible - Infected Recovered) was used to estimate the active cases in Malaysia. This forecast is essential to prepare for the current wave outbreak. Besides that, the number of susceptible can be reduced via vaccinations to reduce future outbreaks. Therefore, with proper planning and execution, the inoculation rates in Malaysia proved to be successful, and the impact of mass vaccination would be seen in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to develop the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) transmission model using the fractional-order differential equation defined by Caputo. This model is developed based on the susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered model, commonly known as the SEIR model. The basic reproduction number, denoted by R0, is computed using the next-generation matrix method. The disease-free equilibrium point is evaluated, and local stability analysis is performed. The analysis shows that the disease-free equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable when R0<1 and unstable when R0>1. In other words, the COVID-19 disease can be eliminated when R0< 1. Finally, numerical results are presented based on the real data of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrated the effectiveness of modeling predictions of gold prices in Malaysia using the Euler numerical method. Our predictive model utilized the Euler numerical scheme to uncover the intelligent trend in the gold price distribution using the World Gold Council data for 10 consecutive years. Our forecasting model was built on Evan's price adjustment model, which identified demand and supply as the major factors responsible for price changes in commodities. Demand and supply functions are major determinant factors that influence the price of commodities at any particular time. Demand and supply can simultaneously compel the price of commodities to adjust to the oscillation caused by them. Using data from the World Gold Council between 2010 and 2020 for Malaysia, we were able to formulate a predictive model capable of predicting the price of gold. The results obtained using our model as a price predictor in computing future gold prices in Malaysia proved effective and efficient. Such a model will assist the government, banks, households, and other investors in optimizing profit, through better planning and wealth recreation within the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020, changed how we live in this world, from how we socialize to how we work, ushering in a new normal with new SOPs to which we must adhere. The unpredictability of COVID-19 forced us to maintain social distance while surviving multiple MCOs in Malaysia. People had no idea that MCOs had a drawback that harmed most of us, particularly those prone to mental health problems. This paper identifies the users' and psychological features and maladaptive coping for the development of mental health applications. An online questionnaire with demographic and psychological information was distributed randomly via social media. The information gathered was counted on an average basis. Respondents who are students or unemployed are more likely to have mental health issues, making them potential users of the proposed application. Unemployed respondents show few signs of mental health problems. This research will benefit application developers who are thinking about creating a mental health application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First and foremost, the HVAC system consumes the most energy in a structure. The price at the moment of use is taken into account by an HVAC system. Since the indoor temperature fluctuates with time, load shifting can only be predicted right before use. Therefore, importance of this research is to reduce operating time by altering the indoor temperature constraint at the predicted peak time. For this research, one of the old building in Pantai Timur, Malaysia, is equipped with an old HVAC system has been selected. Before 2020, this building was not equipped with a monitoring system to control the condition of the components or ventilation rate supply in the building. Since 2020, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) has collaborated with Building Lindungan Sdn Bhd (BLSB), as building maintenance, to innovate IOT automation system for HVAC equipment of this 27 years old building. In order to find the best setting of thermal comfort for each department in this building, this paper aims to investigate the relation between room temperature and WCPU room temperature. This thermal comfort follows to the Department of Standards Malaysia (DOSM) in tropical climate condition. In this research, the building consists of 5 floors. Each floor is equipped with 2 WCPU except 1 WCPU for the 4th floor. Each floor has been supplied with a different horsepower compressor based on the area, number of departments and number of occupants for each floor. There are several parameters that affect the relation between indoor room temperature and WCPU temperature. The factor that most affects the indoor temperature is the climate change in Kemaman. Based on the average data collection (indoor temperature, WCPU temperature, and ambient temperature), the process of analysing has been performed to get the best temperature set up for the automation system. The average temperatures are determined for the morning, afternoon, and evening. Based on the average different temperature (WCPU and indoor) graph, the automation system was set up 23°C to 26°C according to the Department of Standard Malaysia (DOSM). Each WCPU consists of a different relation on the different parameter factor. The set point temperature for the WCPU monitoring system should be configured as recommended. The data and average obtained from Figure 15 are min 25.3°C and max 29.4°C for all WCPU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]