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The COVID-19 outbreak has caused fear and unrest globally in all sectors including the education sector. Educators and students have been put in a lot of stress due to ill-preparedness of the situation and anxiety of coping with the lessons via online. As such, this study aims to investigate the perceived stress of students during the online learning sessions. Respondents were given a perceived stress scale test to identify their stress levels while learning online at home during the lockdown. The study found that the students indeed faced moderate stress issues during online lessons. This indicates that during the ODL the students did experience stress but it was not at a high level as might have been construed because of the change in the physical learning environment to the home-based online learning. In addition, the study also found that there were differences in the stress levels of the male and female students in term of how unpredictable, uncontrollable and overloaded towards their life.

Genetic Algorithm is an algorithm imitating the natural evolution process in solving optimization problems. All feasible (candidate) solutions would be encoded into chromosomes and undergo the execution of genetic operators in evolution. The evolution itself is a process searching for optimum solution. The searching would stop when a stopping criterion is met. Then, the fittest chromosome of last generation is declared as the optimum solution. However, this optimum solution might be a local optimum or a global optimum solution. Hence, an appropriate stopping criterion is important such that the search is not ended before a global optimum solution is found. In this paper, saturation of population fitness is proposed as a stopping criterion for ending the search. The proposed stopping criteria was compared with conventional stopping criterion, fittest chromosomes repetition, under various parameters setting. The results show that the performance of proposed stopping criterion is superior as compared to the conventional stopping criterion.

While the discovery of oil contributes a lot towards a country’s economy and technological development, it is also the cause for oil pollution. As such, this study proposes to use lemon peel waste as a low-cost adsorbent to manage oil pollution. For the untreated adsorbent, the lemon peels were cut into small pieces and dried under sunlight for 48 hours. Then, it was further dried in an oven for 24 hours and ground into powder. For the treated adsorbent, the lemon peels were soaked in 0.5 M of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution. The adsorbent was used to adsorb different types of oil (diesel oil, lubricant oil, waste vegetable oil) and in different types of water (ocean water, lake water, tap water) with different amounts of adsorbent which is 0.2 g, 0.4 g, 0.6 g, 0.8 g, and 1.0 g for adsorbent dosage experiment. While for types of water experiment, a ratio for volume of water and oil of 3:1, and constant mass adsorbent was used. The result showed that untreated adsorbent can adsorb higher amount of oils than treated adsorbent. The oil that could be easily adsorbed using lemon peels adsorbent is diesel oil with 89.91% adsorption. For the types of water, the result changes according to different types of water and oil used. It was found that the higher the mass adsorbent, the lower the percentage of oil removal. The highest percentage of diesel oil removed in ocean water is 81.68%. While the removal of lubricant oil and waste vegetable oil in lake water is 66.6% and 72.13%, respectively. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) shows that treated lemon peels had small pores compared to untreated lemon peel waste. This study demonstrated and proposed that the lemon peel waste has a good potential in low-cost oil waste removal.

The conventional double exponential smoothing is a forecasting method that troubles the forecaster with a tremendous choice of its parameter, alpha. The choice of alpha would greatly influence the accuracy of prediction. In this paper, an integrated forecasting method named Golden Exponential Smoothing (GES) was proposed to solve the problem. The conventional method was reformed and interposed with golden section search such that an optimum alpha which minimizes the errors of forecasting could be identified in the algorithm training process. Numerical simulations of four sets of times series data were employed to test the efficiency of GES model. The findings show that the GES model was self-adjusted according to the situation and converged fast in the algorithm training process. The optimum alpha, which was identified from the algorithm training stage, demonstrated good performance in the stage of Model Testing and Usage.

Most orphanages in Malaysia are run by means of charitable donations. However, the donations and contributions collected are usually not regular or one-off. This has led to orphanages being in a run-down state and ill-equipped. The care given to orphans is important as part and parcel of their human rights to be treated and given a fair chance of living with the rest of the human race. As such, this paper aims to investigate the role of social entrepreneurship in providing care for orphans. Particularly, the paper will focus on an orphanage – “Pertubuhan Kebajikan Anak Yatim Islam Segamat” (PKAYIS) which is located in the state of Johor. PKAYIS has provided shelter for 68 orphans and through charitable donations has been running successfully since 1983. The orphanage has been able to successfully bring up orphans who have succeeded academically and found successful careers in life. Based on the theoretical framework on social entrepreneurship and orphans, observation methods and interviews were carried out to supply relevant information and data for the study. This paper will provide some insights on how social entrepreneurship affects the society and would be beneficial for policy makers interested in adopting social entrepreneurship as a mean of care for orphans.

In the absence of shareholders, accountability practices in social enterprises are determined by the strengths of stakeholders. The stakeholder theory postulates that accountability systems depend greatly on the power and number of stakeholders. With the advent of technologies, it is increasingly common to use internet-based technologies in addressing accountability in social enterprises as they pursue hybrid objectives which attempts to balance off both social and economic missions. In view of this, the present study aims to validate the stakeholder theory, focusing on the effect of web-based accountability practices in social enterprises. Based on the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) database, all the social enterprises in the database were selected after controlling the type of formation for each social enterprise. The three dimensions of web-based accountability practices showed a low disclosure level on the extent of web-based accountability practices incorporating the three dimensions of finance, performance and political accountability. The results also revealed that social enterprises have less interest in disclosing their financial accountability practices through web sites.

The choice of choosing the right company name is very much like the choice of choosing the right name for a product, as the branding can have a lasting effect on customers’ choice of goods. Small and Medium enterprises in Malaysia are also affected by the multicultural and multilingual background of this country. This study aims to identify these sociolinguistic factors that can lend to SME business owners’ choice of Business Company naming and whether this complies with the SSM (Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia) company registration acts. The effects of using the English language as the medium of communicating their business operations instead of other languages will also be an interesting factor to consider. As such, a selected number of SME operators (N=21) were requested to participate in a survey and interview. The results of the study indicated that there is indeed a diversity of factors that contribute to business naming and they are mostly skewed towards influence from family and background of the business owners. The mismatch of linguistic accuracy is partly due to cultural aspects and therefore it is recommended that a set of guidelines in business naming is prepared so that language distortion is not promoted and image of linguistic competency is not tarnished.

Paper as a material, is useful. For this reason, the paper industry has contributed widely to the economy. This is also true for advancement in the technology for recycled papers. Paper fibre or paper pulp however is depleting due to extensive deforestation and loggings which in turn leads to problems such as global warming. Further, eggshell waste is a material found to be useful to produce papers. As such, this study intends to find out the possibilities of using eggshell waste and waste papers to produce papers. To carry out the research, the optimum ratio of fibre in the paper pulp was determined by the maximum strength of recycled paper produced. Eggshell waste was collected from a food court. The eggshells were then separated from their membrane, dried in the sun and grinded. It was then mixed with paper pulp according to the measured ratio. The study found that paper from a combination of eggshell fibre waste against waste paper was able to be produced and the optimum ratio was 2:8 because it had the highest tensile strength. The eggshell waste can be used as a material that enhanced the mechanical properties of recycled paper.

This study investigates the effects of the CMC applications on the ESL/EFL writing anxiety. This is a descriptive study using a mixed-method that adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Three instruments were employed to answer the research questions of the current study which are Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), Semi-structured Interview, and Documents Observation. The respondents consisted of twenty eight post-graduate ESL/EFL students who enrolled in the elective course of Computer Application in ESOL (SKBI6133) at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, School of English Language Studies, National University of Malaysia (UKM). The findings showed a significant change in their attitudes toward writing after they had engaged in writing process approach and CMC applications in the course. In addition, the respondents perceived that there was a positive effect of on their writing performance and improvement on their writing anxiety level particularly through the use of CMC applications.

The idea of integrating higher order thinking skills (HOTS) in language classrooms has been viewed negatively by language teachers. Students have been found to be passive and teachers have been found to lack creativity in innovating their lessons. The government’s effort of introducing thinking skills in the Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) 2015-2025 is still at its initial stage and the idea of how and why thinking skills should be introduced is yet to be addressed. As such, this quasi-experimental study aims at investigating how HOTS can be integrated in the ESL reading classroom and to what extent students perceive this idea as applicable for them to develop critical thinking skills. A quasi-experimental approach has been applied involving 30 students selected from a convenient non-random sampling method. The students were exposed to two treatments: (1) online reading response task (2) offline reading response task. In both treatments, they were required to discuss a given issue in groups and then to read an article on the issue before posting their views. A selected number of 10 students were then subjected to a set of structured interview session. A descriptive analysis was done based on the interview responses. The results showed that the students favoured the given tasks and believed that it was innovative and out-of-the-box, with recommendations that the tasks should be continued and recommended to other ESL reading classrooms.

The teaching of English grammar to second language learners is usually a tedious, stressful and time consuming activity and even after all the effort, students have generally found these lessons boring and confusing. As such, innovative language instructors have been trying different approaches to the teaching of grammar in their classrooms. Using analogy as a tool for teaching is nothing new especially in science subjects such as Physics. In this comparative study however, analogy is used to teach English verb tenses to low proficiency L2 learners of English. The aim is to investigate the effects of using analogy as a tool for teaching English verb tenses. If using analogy is found to be effective, then it would be interesting to investigate to what extent it can be implemented in the low proficiency classroom. The analogy used has been creatively thought out and incorporated in the lesson with the help of innovative visual aids. A hundred and seventy-two pre-diploma students with low profiency levels of English were selected for this experiment. They were given a pre and post-test task before and after the lesson on verb tenses in order to determine whether the use of analogy implemented during the lesson had a favourable impact to learning. The test scores of the pre and post tests were then compared to verify the feasibility of using analogy in the lesson.

Conventional corrective feedback has been widely practiced but has been said to be tedious, stressful and time consuming. As such, the focus of this study is to investigate the use of an alternative method to giving corrective feedback namely, an online corrective feedback through e-mail. In order to examine if this innovative form of corrective feedback can be applied to the teaching and learning of academic writing, an experimental design was used with a control group and an experimental group of L1 Malay learners who were pursuing an academic writing course at the tertiary level. Interviews were also conducted on selected individuals to determine whether the use of online corrective feedback was practical in assisting learners improve their writing from the first draft to the final product. The statistical analysis applied to this research indicated that online corrective feedback may be an effective way to improve writing skills of learners and save time. Thus, the results showed that online corrective feedback should be potentially useful when integrated into the teaching and learning of academic writing.

Embedding web-based learning systems in education has drawn increasing popularity and growing interest among the contemporary language education community in recent time. In particular, blogs have become a profound phenomenon in the present landscape of online education. However, research addressing the instructor’s perspective about the engagement of blog technology in second language education is still lagging behind. The current study seeks to explore and survey the perspectives of six Malaysian academicians on the use of blogs in teaching English as second language to Malaysian students at higher education institutions. A qualitative approach was adopted to collect responses from the participants via a semi-structured interview. In addition, a checklist of features of the blog was used to investigate the blogging activities in the courses conducted by the participants. The collected data from the interview were analyzed qualitatively, whereas the blog checklist data were analyzed quantitatively. The obtained results indicated that the surveyed instructors had a positive reflection on using blogs in the teaching and learning of the English as second language.

The random walk hypothesis is a theory which states that market prices are not influenced by prior price movements and therefore, prices in the stock market cannot simply be predicted. The stock market is considered efficient and follows the random walk theory when intelligent market participants lead the situation and reflect all available information based on the past or future events. The phenomena of calendar anomalies in stock markets are proven from the previous study, where behavior of returns tend to be high or low during specific calendar periods. Thus, for this study, we aims to investigate relationships between lunar effect and average stock returns for ten emerging countries for the period of January 2004 until December 2010. A lunar effect is a phenomenon where mean returns around the new moon is higher than mean returns around the full moon. Using non-parametric and basic multiple linear regression analysis, the result shows that returns on the full moon were slightly lower as compared to the returns on the new moon prior to the financial crisis and vice versa during the financial crisis.