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Thirteen bamboo species are reported to be in commercial use in Malaysia. However, Buluh madu (Gigantochloa albociliata) did not make to the list. As a species, G. albociliata is cultivated for its delicious bamboo shoot and is demonstrated to possess great potential to produce commercialised products such as laminated bamboo panel. Unlike common bamboo, which has hollow cylindrical culms, G. albociliata has thick culms at the base, with smaller hollow cavities at the top portion. Therefore, it can be easily converted into high-thickness strips, thus improving the processing efficiency of laminated bamboo. To validate this theory, the anatomical, chemical, physical, and mechanical properties of G. albociliata were evaluated. The round bamboo and strips from the top and bottom sections of the bamboo stem were tested. It was found that G. albociliata has a vascular bundle type similar to that of the Gigantochloa genus bamboo. The fibre in G. albociliata is long and strong. The top section of bamboo has longer fibres, a higher density, and a higher specific gravity than the bottom section. As a result, bamboo from the top section has greater bending strength than bamboo from the bottom section. The G. albociliata species was discovered to have high mechanical strength, dimensional stability, and good wettability, making it an ideal material for laminated products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After wheat and rice, maize is one of the most significant cereal crops worldwide. However, high-quality seed materials are prerequisites for stable yields, and low-quality maize seeds significantly contribute to low yields and deteriorate over time. Therefore, the present investigation aims to investigate the effects of seed quality and hybrid types on maize germination by emphasizing seed viability and vigor and their impact on maize crops' overall performance and productivity. The study was separately conducted in the laboratory and on a field experiment plot under the Department of Crop Production, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, in spring 2022. Nine parental lines, six hybrids, and a controlled hybrid were tested in this study. The studies were laid out using a complete randomization design (CRD) and a randomized complete block design (RCBD) in the laboratory and in the field. The results of the study showed that there was a statistically significant difference between genotypes and number of days and their interaction in seed vigor. The parental lines showed better performance in terms of germination percentage and radicle elongation, whereas single-cross hybrids (SC) produced better plumule length. The radicle and plumule length also expanded significantly as incubation days increased. In field evaluations, as expected, hybrid lines produced better performance than parental lines, and SC hybrids were more prevalent than the other hybrids. In addition, the number of rows per ear, number of kernels per ear, 1000-kernel weight, and ear weight directly affected the final grain yield. However, further research is needed on new approaches that can assist researchers in advancing their work by considering biotic and abiotic factors to address seed-quality issues and enhance yield production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the effect of relationship marketing components (trust, bonding, shared values, communication, empathy and reciprocity) on marketing effectiveness in Malaysian star-rated hotels. The data are based on findings gathered from 65 self-administered questionnaires distributed to middle level managers of three-to five star-rated hotels in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. A Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. The results of the measurement model confirm that the six dimensions of relationship marketing possess are an adequate reliability and have internal consistency as well as convergent validity. The results of structural model show that among key components of relationship marketing, trust, bonding and shared value have positive influences on marketing effectiveness, while communication, empathy and reciprocity do not. The findings of this study provided insights to hoteliers with regard to the importance of deploying and implementing relationship marketing practices as an effort to improve marketing effectiveness performance in the hospitality sector.

We have investigated the dynamics of how consumer make relationship with brand (non-human entities) that is consumer brand relationships. This relationship is like the same relationship between two people in the society. Meta-analytic literature review has been conducted to explore different aspect of this relationship dynamics. The investigation reveals that brands work as a relationship partners with consumers. Relationship dimensions, which are considered as ground of relationship types, constructed by authors differs resulting different types consumer brand relationships. However, various authors measure relationship quality based on the same ground relationship strength and feelings using different theories. This research has implications for both academicians and practitioners as they can comprehensively conceptualize the consumer brand relationship, its nature, type and dimensions explored by researchers and their present state.

Prayer plays a noteworthy role in Muslims daily lives. Quran and Sunnah testify that regular prayers can boost one’s health, can remove the level of stress, and may make one more productive and vigour. Such findings also noticed by medical and psychological experts, and likewise many contemporary research have shown wide-ranging outcomes in terms of improved wellbeing when prayer is done with sincere devotion. Nevertheless what is lacking is that the policy makers in the Islamic world need to initiate whether there exist any linkages between prayer and productivity, which needs to be appreciated more by them, as well as by Islamic economists and social scientists, Islamic business professionals and Islamic jurists, and then through a concerted effort and dynamic fact finding mission and verification to ascertain the Qur’anic beliefs in our daily lives. This studies using descriptive analysis to explain the linkage between the Islamic prayer and productivityDOI: 10.15408/aiq.v8i2.3160

Objectives: To determine the cytotoxicity of crude ethanolic extract, n-butanol fraction and aqueous fraction on selected cancer cell lines, and to observe the morphological changes of the cancer cells treated with n-butanol fraction. Methods: The cytotoxic effect of n-butanol fraction, crude ethanolic extract and aqueous fraction on breast cancer (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231), colon cancer (HT29), lung cancer (A549), cervical cancer (HeLa) and normal mouse fibroblast (3T3) cell lines was determined using MTT assay. The morphological changes of the treated cells were observed under an inverted light microscope. Results: n-Butanol fraction was the most cytotoxic towards HT29 and MCF-7 cells in a dose-dependent manner compared to crude ethanolic extract and aqueous fraction (P

Globalisation of market present more challenges and it requires firms to respond by adopting various strategies. One of the strategies is through involvement in international strategic alliances. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of global market environment factors, which consists of two dimensions namely global market opportunities and global market threats on the degree of cooperation of international strategic alliances. A quantitative study with data collected through survey questionnaire was conducted and the sample of the study consisted of 214 service based companies in Yemen. The findings show a significant positive relationship between the global market opportunities factor and the degree of cooperation of international strategic alliances. In contrast, there is no significant relationship observed between the global market threats and the degree of cooperation. Therefore, firms observing new market opportunities resulting from globalization tend to increase the degree of cooperation of their strategic alliances.

Boost DC-DC converters are used in many renewable energy sources including photovoltaic and fuel cell. They are also used in Uninterrupted Power Supply, inverters, electric vehicles and robots. In this paper a boost converter was built and its controller was developed using proportional integral (PI) action for current loop and low pass filter (LPF) for voltage loop. The controller was derived analytically based on small signal model. Experiment results show that the boost controller functions well in regulating the output voltage under a variation of load. During the start up without any load it can elevate input voltage from 119.6V to output voltage of 241.6V. The developed controller can regulate the output voltage smoothly under load variation from no load to sudden load of 352W. When a large sudden load change happens from 0W to 1042W the output voltage experiences small drop before it is recovered to 241.6V. It can be concluded that the developed control system satisfies the design specification.

The red palm weevil (RPW) is a stem boring Coleoptera that decimates host palm trees from within. The challenge of managing this pest is due to a lack of physical symptoms during the early stages of infestation. Investigating the physiological changes that occur within RPW-infested palm trees may be useful in establishing a new approach in RPW detection. In this study, the effects of RPW infestation were investigated in Elaeis guineensis by observing changes in physical and physiological parameters during the progress of infestation by visual inspection and the comparison of growth, gas exchange, stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll content between the non-infested control, physically wounded, and RPW-infested E. guineensis groups. During the study period, four distinct levels of physical infestation were observed and recorded. The RPW-infested group displayed significantly lower maximum photosynthesis activity (Amax) starting from the third week post-infestation. However, growth in terms of change in plant height and stem circumference, leaves’ stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll content were not significantly different between the three groups during the duration of the study. The significant drop in photosynthesis was observed one week before physical changes appeared. This suggests the promising utilisation of photosynthesis activity as a signal for detecting RPW infestation at the early stage of attacks, which could be useful for integration in integrated pest management (IPM).

Voice pathology disorders can be effectively detected using computer-aided voice pathology classification tools. These tools can diagnose voice pathologies at an early stage and offering appropriate treatment. This study aims to develop a powerful feature extraction voice pathology detection tool based on Deep Learning. In this paper, a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was applied to a dataset of voice pathology to maximize the classification accuracy. This study also proposes a distinguished training method combined with various training strategies in order to generalize the application of the proposed system on a wide range of problems related to voice disorders. The proposed system has tested using a voice database, namely the Saarbrücken voice database (SVD). The experimental results show the proposed CNN method for speech pathology detection achieves accuracy up to 95.41%. It also obtains 94.22% and 96.13% for F1-Score and Recall. The proposed system shows a high capability of the real-clinical application that offering a fast-automatic diagnosis and treatment solutions within 3 s to achieve the classification accuracy.

In healthcare applications, numerous sensors and devices produce massive amounts of data which are the focus of critical tasks. Their management at the edge of the network can be done by Fog computing implementation. However, Fog Nodes suffer from lake of resources That could limit the time needed for final outcome/analytics. Fog Nodes could perform just a small number of tasks. A difficult decision concerns which tasks will perform locally by Fog Nodes. Each node should select such tasks carefully based on the current contextual information, for example, tasks’ priority, resource load, and resource availability. We suggest in this paper a Multi-Agent Fog Computing model for healthcare critical tasks management. The main role of the multi-agent system is mapping between three decision tables to optimize scheduling the critical tasks by assigning tasks with their priority, load in the network, and network resource availability. The first step is to decide whether a critical task can be processed locally; otherwise, the second step involves the sophisticated selection of the most suitable neighbor Fog Node to allocate it. If no Fog Node is capable of processing the task throughout the network, it is then sent to the Cloud facing the highest latency. We test the proposed scheme thoroughly, demonstrating its applicability and optimality at the edge of the network using iFogSim simulator and UTeM clinic data.

Differentiating primary and secondary membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN) using biomarkers for MGN is essential in patients’ diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. Although biopsy has been the primary tool in making the diagnosis, not all patients can withstand it due to its invasive nature, and it cannot be used to monitor treatment. Hence, there is the need for less invasive or even non-invasive biomarkers for effective diagnosis, treatment monitoring and prognostication. This study aimed at providing an alternative way of differentiating primary and secondary MGN using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique for serum and urine biomarkers (M-type phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) and thrombospondin type-1 domain-containing 7A (THSD7A)) for prompt diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. A total of 125 subjects, including 81 primary and 44 secondary MGN subjects, were diagnosed from January 2012 to October 2019 at Hospital Serdang and Hospital Kuala Lumpur from which 69 subjects consisting of 47 primary and 22 secondary MGN subjects participated in the study. Of these, 13 primary MGN subjects were positive for both serum and urine anti-PLA2R antibodies (Ab) whereas only one secondary MGN subject associated with hepatitis B virus was positive for both serum and urine anti-PLA2R Ab. At the same time, anti-THSD7A Ab was found positive in four primary MGN subjects and two secondary MGN subjects with malignancy.

Background Globally, quitlines have been shown to be an effective means for smoking cessation. The success of quitting among smokers is contributed by many factors such as nicotine dependence, motivation, income and educational levels, previous quit attempts, environmental characteristics and quit methods. This study will determine the characteristics of clients with nicotine dependence and short- term abstinence (one month duration) among those registered with the USM Tobacco Quitline Service. Methods Secondary analysis of USM Tobacco Quitline clients with the age range between 18-80 years old who completed initial assessment (one week pre Quit Date (QD)) and have been followed-up within one month post QD. The Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), which is a validated six-item scale, was used to assess the nicotine dependence among those that registered for Quitline service one week prior to QD. Continuous abstinence (relapse or continue quitting) data was obtained for one month post QD. Results Of the 418 registered clients, 68.2% (n=285) confirmed their registration. Sixty four clients completed their initial assessment and were followed-up within one month post QD. Majority (93.8%) of them were males with the mean age of 44. All clients with high FTND score and 95.5% clients with moderate FTND score successfully achieved one month smoke- free (short-term abstinence) higher than clients with mild FTND score. Conclusions The findings showed that smokers with high and moderate FTND scores were able to achieve better short-term abstinence compared to those with mild FTND score. Further research needs to be conducted to understand the reason for this behaviour. This result does not take into account other abstinence factors. A long-term abstinence data would provide an insight on the ways to improve the service particularly in the diverse client background.

Abstrak: Gejala hamil luar nikah dalam kalangan remaja menjadi isu besar dan sukar dibendung lagi. Pengaruh media sosial, pergaulan bebas dan kurang didikan agama dalam kalangan ibu bapa menjadi antara punca remaja hamil luar nikah. Keluarga merupakan pelindung utama dalam pembentukan sahsiah dan kesejahteraan psikologi golongan remaja agar tidak terpengaruh dengan masalah sosial yang tidak terkawal. Mengandung dan melahirkan anak tak sah taraf dalam usia muda menimbulkan keresahan kepada remaja tentang cara untuk ‘menyelamatkan’ anak tersebut daripada pengetahuan umum. Pelbagai isu dan masalah yang menyelubungi perasaan mereka sama ada ingin memelihara sendiri anak tersebut atau menyerahkan sahaja kepada keluarga angkat. Objektif kajian ini dilakukan adalah untuk mengetahui sejauh manakah penerimaan remaja hamil luar nikah dan keluarga terhadap anak tersebut. Kajian ini berbentuk kualitatif berdasarkan kajian-kajian terdahulu menerusi pelbagai buku, jurnal dan dokumen yang membincangkan isu remaja hamil luar nikah. Kaedah tinjauan digunakan untuk mengenal pasti pandangan para responden tentang penerimaan mereka terhadap kelahiran anak tak sah taraf. Pengumpulan data diperoleh dengan menggunakan metode temu bual berstruktur yang menjadi asas utama dalam kajian ini. Analisis perbandingan dilakukan terhadap data yang dikumpulkan dan dikategorikan kepada lima isu penting sama ada bersifat positif atau negatif dan sama ada terdapat persamaan atau perbezaan dari aspek penjagaan, pendidikan, pengurusan dan kebajikan, emosi dan perasaan serta akhlak dan perubahan sikap remaja tersebut. Hasil kajian mendapati bahawa remaja dan ahli keluarga mereka boleh menerima kelahiran anak tak sah taraf dan bersifat positif tentang kepentingan menjaga anak tersebut. Terdapat persamaan antara mereka dari aspek pendidikan, pengurusan dan kebajikan, emosi dan perasaan serta akhlak dan perubahan sikap. Walau bagaimanapun, terdapat perbezaan dari aspek penjagaan anak tersebut iaitu ada antara remaja dan ahli keluarga sanggup memelihara sendiri dan sebaliknya ada yang menyerahkan kepada keluarga angkat. Kata kunci: Remaja, Pergaulan bebas, Hamil luar nikah, Anak tak sah taraf, Keluarga angkat. Abstract: Symptoms of pregnancy outside marriage among teenagers has become a big issue and still unresolved. This catastrophe is due to the influence of social media, promiscuity and lack of proper religious education among the said teenagers. Family is the main factor in the formation of personality and psychological well-being of teenagers against any bad influenced. Pregnancy and giving birth to an illegitimate child at young age has caused anxiety to young people to the face the issue on how to 'save' the child from public knowledge. Various issues and problems will occur including the issue of maintenance the child ie. Whether to maintain the children themselves or to hand over it to adoptive family. The objective of this study is to determine the extent of acceptance of teenagers’pregnancy outside marriage. This writing is a qualitative case study writing based on previous studies through various secondary sources that discussed the issue of teenage pregnancy out of wedlock. The survey method was also used to identify the respondents' view of their acceptance of illegitimate children. Data were also collected using a structured interview method. A comparative analysis was conducted on data collected and categorized into five key issues either positive or negative and whether there are similarities or differences in the aspects of care, education, and welfare management, emotions and feelings as well as moral and change the behaviour of teenagers. The study found that adolescents and their family members can accept their illegitimate children and are ready to look after the child. There are similarities between them in terms of education, management and welfare, emotions and feelings as well as moral and attitudinal changes. However, there are differences in the aspects of illegitimate child care among adolescents and family members who are unable to maintain the children and this had caused them to send the children to host family. Keywords: Teenagers, Free intercourse, Pregnancy outside marriage, Illegitimate children, Host family.