Archives-May 2011

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of developing Questionnaires of Deviant Sexual Behavior and Awareness on Sexual Deviation Behavior Based on Islam. Some criteria’s has been identified to develop these questionnaires in the aspect of psychology, counseling and Islamic education. The benefit is to produce an applicable instrument to the Islamic context. These questionnaires were developed through integrated discipline of psychology, counseling and Islam and the aim is for enable to measure sexual deviant behavior from the Islamic perspective. The main sources of these references were based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Revision (2000), Checklist Sexual Behavior Inventory (Friedrich, 1997), Al Ghazali Model (Yatimah and Mohd Tajudin, 2008) and the tendency of immoral behavior based on human sense according to Islam (Amir Hassan, 2007). DSM-IV-TR (2000) which involved some clinical items such as exhibitionism, frotteurism and voyeurism. Meanwhile Checklist Sexual Behaviour Inventory (Friedrich, 1997) were refers to personal boundaries, exhibitionism, self-stimulation, sexual interest, sexual knowledge and voyeuristic behavior. Counseling Model Based On Human Traits Al Ghazali (Yatimah and Mohd Tajudin, 2008) involved some items such as limitation in intermingle, aurat limitation, sense limitation, and the tendency of immoral behaviour based on human sense according to Islam (Amir Hassan, 2007) such as part of body, hands, mouth, ear and eye. These questionnaires has been evaluated for the content validity and expert validity from the internal expert and external expert. The result of these questionnaires showed a commonly acceptable for the Cronbach alpha value more than 0.6 (Kerlinger, 1979). The Questionaires of Deviant Sexual Behaviour Based on Islam for the value of Cronbach Alpha was 0.7038 and Awareness on Sexual Deviation Behaviour Based on Islam for the Cronbach Alpha was 0.7183.

This study seeks to investigate the conversion patterns among mualafs in Malaysia. Its focus is to find out the demographic information of mualafs and to identify the popular conversion patterns among mualafs in Malaysia. Three (3) conversion patterns i.e. intellectual, mystical and affectional are being investigated in this study. Data collection was done at PUSBA, Kedah whereby mualafs from all states were gathered. A total of 42 responses were collected from these mualafs using a census study method. This study found that majority of the respondents were Sabahan and came from other races such as Iban, Asli, Myanmar, Kadazan and Thai. More than half of the respondents were unemployed but most of the mualafs had an adequate academic level. Results showed that majority of the mualafs were influenced by someone who are close to them which is linked to the affectional conversion pattern. It is hoped that this study will provide insights to JAKIM in terms of conversion patterns among the mualafs in Malaysia.

This study aims to analyze and compare errors made by students when using simple tenses in essay writing. The comparison was made after 6 months. The respondents of the study consisted of secondary school students from the Alpha and Beta classes and UiTM Kelantan groups which consisted of first and third diploma students from three different programmes. All respondents were asked to write an essay twice, with 6-month gap based on the same writing stimulus. In total, there were 107 essays written by respondents in each writing session, giving a grand total of 214 essays being analyzed. The results indicated an increase in errors amounting to 4.47% among students in the Alpha group but there is a reduction of 13.76% among the Beta group which was the weaker group. As for UiTM students, Diploma in Banking students showed an increase in the amount of errors by 8.2%. On contrary, Diploma in Business and Diploma in Information Management students showed a decrease in the amount by 23.79% and 3.4 %, respectively. The results of the study also indicated that there were some similarities in the types of errors made by the students.

In this paper, a new algorithm for noise suppression schemes is applied to specific practical problem mainly the suppression of Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) level of the modulated signal. This is a practical situation of modulation which is used in different transceivers schemes such as in Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) or other types of modulation techniques with standard microwave systems. The algorithm is well suited for a modular software radio concept, which we believe, will be more accepted in the future of wireless communication. Further modifications of the scheme necessary for these applications are described, and the results are presented to illustrate performance improvements. A general interpretation of this technique based on multiplying the transmitted data vectors by a generated amplitude matrix (AM) in the transmitter side, and the inverse of amplitude matrix (IAM) in the receiver side algorithm are introduced and discussed. The suggested scheme results are compared with the conventional modem through using BPSK type of modulation. Different gains are obtained from the proposed model relevant with the conventional system in AWGN and flat fading channel, according to the variation of the adjusted parameters.

Economic globalization has exposed the electric and electronic industrial sector to competition, which is intense and global in character. This situation subsequently influences the capability of firms to plan production based on a new perspective. Affected firms thus implement several strategies to upgrade their competitiveness at the global scale through product upgrading; and this is related to the capacity arising from the producer services sector. Following from the above, this paper aims to examine to what extent industrial upgrading in the manufacturing sector is possible via the integration of the capacity arising from local producer services component, which is in line with the ‘Manufacturing Plus Plus’ strategy of the IMP2. Using research methods such as face-to-face interviews and questionnaire survey and focussing on R&D and IT, this research on the electric and electronic firms in industrial areas in Penang (30 firms) indicates that industrial upgrading efforts in the manufacturing sector could be achieved through the integration of advanced producer services components in the production process. In this respect, this research contributes to current knowledge and understanding (from the perspective of theory and practice) on producer services?manufacturing sector relationship.

This study is aimed to determine whether Cooperative Learning Approach will improve the soft skills among university students and to discover the perception of student towards such approach. Data obtained is analyzed by descriptive as well as inferential statistics. Data on demographic were analyzed by means and percentage, while the paired t-test was used to analyze before and after experiencing Cooperative Learning Approach, in which 0.05 a significant level was established to prove that student’s soft-skills has improved. From 9 key competencies of soft skills that being evaluated, surprisingly result shown that students really improved their soft skills after using Cooperative Learning Approach. In sum, Cooperative Learning Approach can be used as instructional classroom strategy in tertiary education as to improve student’s soft skills and thus increasing their employability chances.

In corporate governance, the executive compensation appears to be the controversial issue among the stakeholders as well as the shareholders. This study is to find the relationship between executive compensation and the company performance, size and managerial controls in Sarawak. Using all 22 public listed companies in Sarawak, data in annual reports from 2004 to 2006 were gathered. The result showed that there is a weak positive relationship between executive compensation with the company performance (ROS) and size (sales), while no relationship was found between the executive compensation and the managerial control.

A laboratory investigation was undertaken to explore the production of cellulase enzyme complex and xylanase enzyme in the Boletus edulis, Ganodrema tsugae and Micoporus xanthopus. The result of the study revealed that the exo-B 1,4 glucanase activity, endo B-1,4 glucanase basidiocarp of mushrooms, viz., activity, B-glucosidase activity and xylanase activity were very much pronounced in Ganoderma tsugae (1.791 Umg-1 1.864 Umg-1,1.127 IUmg-1 and 0.142 IUmg-1 enzyme protien) than Boletus edulis (0.555 Umg-1,1.05 Umg-1,0.683 IUmg-1 and 0.063 IUmg-1 enzyme protein)and Microporus xanthopus (1.142Umg-1,1.503 Umg-1, 0.623 IUmg-1& 0.038 IUmg-1 enzyme protein).

Multidimensional assessments of groundwater quality have been carried out in some communities of the Lower Pra Basin in Ghana. Samples were collected from thirty one (31) water points. All ions were determined using standard methods. Results show that ion concentrations are primarily influenced by various hydrogeological processes such as silicate weathering, ion exchange and sea aerosol spray. From the SAR calculation, 90.3% of the water was within the excellent category; 6.5% and 3.2% were within the good and unsuitable category respectively. Calculation of % sodium showed 7%, 48%, 32% and 13% being good, permissible, doubtful and unsuitable respectively. From the Wilcox’s diagram, approximately 71% fall within excellent to good category; 26% in the category of permissible to doubtful; 3% within the doubtful to unsuitable category. Approximately 90% of the samples were found to be good by RSC index; 7% fall within the doubtful category and 3% unsuitable. A high percentage was within permissible ranges for TDS and TH. The results suggest that generally groundwater samples are suitable for domestic and irrigation purposes under normal temperature and pH condition.

In this study the effect of land size on energy use of strawberry production in Iran was investigated. The data were collected from 110 farmers in 13 villages growing strawberry in Kurdistan province of Iran. The land size was categorized into 4 groups. Total input energy for the first group, second group, third group, and last group was 60556.6 MJ ha^-1, 49313.5 MJ ha^-1, 49823.7 MJ ha^-1, and 37234.1 MJ ha^-1, respectively. The difference between mean values of first group and last group was significant at the 5% significance level. The difference between mean values of other groups was not significant at the 5% significance level.