Browse
Search Research Outputs
Recent Additions
- PublicationVisual Depiction And Transformation Of Time And Space Through Landscape Abstraction(2024-07)Time is never-ending, while space is created by the positioning of objects and the changes that occur with their movement. Landscapes are essentially all-encompassing, changing, and transient with the passage of time. The word “transient” is of Buddhist origin and suggests the changing state of everything in the world, which affects all aspects of human activity and the environment. The concept of the Japanese tea ceremony involving “one period, one encounter” originates from Chinese Zen Buddhism, which has conducted a fundamental exploration of “transient” and developed a philosophical context for studio practice research. Based on the philosophical context of transience and guided by two theories of spatio-temporal relations, ‘endurantism’ and ‘perdurantism’, this research incorporates Guo Xi’s ‘three distances’ method of observation, color symbolism, and Graham Gibbs’s Reflective Cycle into a studio practice to investigate how the relationship between time and space can be visually depicted and transformed through landscape abstraction. This study relies on years of personal experience and transient context to generate a personal understanding of the possibility that spatio-temporal relationships. This research suggests that time affects the real presence of landscape space, making it an abstract form of stillness, ambiguity, or change (conceptualized respectively as “freezing the moment,” “instantaneous blur,” and “time change”), thus making a new contribution to studio practice.
- PublicationThe Development And Effectiveness Of A PjBL Speaking Module In Enhancing English Speaking Proficiency And Learner Autonomy Among Efl Undergraduates In China(2024-08)The study examined the effectiveness of a PjBL speaking module on English-speaking proficiency (ES) and learner autonomy (LA). Following the “analysis, design, develop, implement, and evaluate” (ADDIE) module outlined by Branch (2009), the project-based learning (PjBL) speaking module integrated the gold standards for PjBL (GSPjBL) as proposed by Larmer et al. (2015) into the English as a foreign language (EFL) learning material. The study employed a quasi-experiment by purposively selecting 35 second-year undergraduates for the experimental group who had experienced the PjBL speaking module. In comparison, the control group comprised 35 second-year undergraduates who received traditional speaking module. The experimental and the control groups were on two campuses of a university respectively in China. Mixed methods were used to collect data through ES pre and post-test, LA pre- and post-questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. The ANCOVA results showed that students’ vocabulary and grammar proficiency in the experimental group were significantly higher than those in the control group. At the same time, there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in post-pronunciation mean scores.
- PublicationThe Effectiveness Of The Production-Oriented Approach In Enhancing English Writing Achievement And Motivation Among Year 8 Students In China(2024-07)English writing is particularly crucial for students at the basic education level. This study aims to address the current issues of poor writing achievement and low writing motivation among Chinese eighth-grade students by employing a production-oriented approach (POA). The research design followed the Explanatory Sequential (QUAN-Qual) Design of the mixed-methods approach, which the qualitative findings were used to help explain and support the quantitative results. The quantitative study employed purposive sampling to conduct a quasi-experimental study with 80 students, including 40 students in the experimental group who participated in eight weeks of POA. In the qualitative study, five students from the experimental group volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. The quantitative results of the writing test and MANCOVA analyzes showed that the experimental groups were significantly different (p <.05) from that of the control group in terms of language, content, and structure. Additionally, the questionnaire and independent sample t-test analyzes revealed that the writing motivation was significantly different (p <.05) for both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
- PublicationAdsorption studies of heavy metals on activated carbon prepared from agricultural waste(2018-03)Commercially available activated carbon (AC) is still considered expensive due to the use of non-renewable and relatively expensive starting material such as bituminous coal. Therefore, this study investigates the potential use of agricultural waste such as rubber seed coat (RSC) and corncob (CC) that available in Malaysia, as the precursor for the preparation of AC which can be applied for the removal of two types of heavy metal, which are Cu (II) and Zn (II) from aqueous solution. Physiochemical activation consisting of potassium hydroxide (KOH) impregnation plus carbon dioxide (CO2) gasification was used to prepare the ACs. The optimum preparation conditions of RSCAC-CU were found at activation temperature of 793 °C, activation time of 1h and KOH impregnation ratio (IR) of 2.46. As for RSCAC-ZN, the optimum preparation conditions were at activation temperature of 797 °C, activation time of 1h and IR of 2.61. Meanwhile, the optimum preparation conditions of CCAC-CU were found at activation temperature of 762 °C, activation time of 2.7h and IR of 3.25. For CCAC-ZN, the optimum reparation conditions were at activation temperature of 768 °C, activation time of 3h and IR of 3.5. All the activated carbons prepared were high BET surface area (>500 m2/g) and pore volume (>0.41 m3/g). RSCAC and CCAC demonstrated homogeneous and heterogeneous type pore structures, respectively. The effects of adsorbate initial concentration (10-100 mg/L), contact time, solution temperature (30-60 °C), solution pH (2-6), isotherms and kinetics of the adsorption systems were evaluated through batch adsorption test. The Cu (II) and Zn (II) adsorption uptakes increased with increasing initial concentration and optimum contact time. Adsorptions of Cu (II) and Zn (II) on all ACs were best fitted by the Freundlich isotherm model. Adsorption kinetics of Cu (II) and Zn (II) followed pseudo-second-order on all the ACs. Fixed bed study showed that the exhaustion period for Zn (II) was greater than Cu (II) and the increase in bed heights resulted in higher exhaustion period.
- PublicationComparative Analysis Of Nucleic Acid Residues In Core Streptavidin Using Three Isolation Techniques(2024-08)Recombinant core streptavidin (cSAV) is a truncated non-glycosylated tetrameric SAV which has been widely utilised in a wide range of biotechnological applications. Due to cSAV commercial importance, recombinant cSAV has been extensively produced using expression host system such as Escherichia coli to high expression level. Nevertheless, accumulation of cSAV in high levels results in the formation of insoluble non-functional inclusion bodies (IBs) which requires efficient downstream processing steps to overcome. This process involves isolation of IBs from cell lysates through combination of cell disruption techniques, multiple centrifugation steps, IBs solubilization and refolding to acquire correctly refolded cSAV. However, during IBs preparation, presence of cellular contaminants such as residual nucleic acids is inevitable and can affect subsequent refolding process. Hence, in this study, the IBs isolation process from our previous group (Process A) was improved to obtain high quality cSAV IBs in an effort to attain refolded cSAV with minimal contaminants. The improvements were enhanced with the incorporation of quantitative polymerase chain reactions (qPCR) for residual DNAs monitoring. By employing combined cell disruption approaches such as extensive sonication (Process B) and addition of benzonase nuclease (Process C), cSAV IBs with 99% removal of residual DNAs were achieved. A 10% increment of cSAV refolding yield (72%) and 83% reduction of residual DNAs from refolding of 1 mg cSAV IBs were observed under extensive sonication. Despite perceiving the least residual DNAs, refolding of cSAV was found not affected and the activity of refolded cSAV was not compromised.
Most viewed
- PublicationThe Aging-Inequality Nexus: The Domestic Savings Channel And Threshold Effects In Asia-Pacific Countries(2024-05)Income inequality has generally exhibited an increasing trend, albeit at varying rates among Asia-Pacific countries, during a concurrent boom in the elderly population. As such, the connection between the rising prevalence of the aging population and the slow progress in alleviating income inequality remains unclear. Moreover, there is a lack of empirical analysis focusing on domestic savings as a potential transmission mechanism within the aging-inequality nexus. To address these questions, this study sets forth three primary objectives. First, the study investigates whether a long-term relationship exists between aging and income inequality using the Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (A-ARDL) bounds test. The key findings confirm that aging coexists with income inequality in advanced aging economies. Empirical evidence indicates that population aging exacerbates income inequality in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and China. Conversely, the aging process in Hong Kong appears to moderate inequality. The second objective explores the role of domestic savings as a transmission mechanism in the relationship between aging and income inequality, while also considering the effects of social globalization. The results reveal that aging significantly influences savings behaviors in aged and super-aged countries. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and China display a negative relationship between aging and savings, whereas Hong Kong shows a positive correlation between the older dependency ratio and domestic saving.
- PublicationRisk perception and factors associated With preferences for safe drinking water Outpatients at husm Kota bharu, kelantan.(2012)RISK PERSEPTION ON SAFE DRINKING WATER AND FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH SAFE DRINKING WATER PREFERENCES AMONG HUSM OUTPATIENT CLINIC ATTENDEES IN KOTA BHARU KELANTAN. Safe drinking water source is the main topic discussed nowadays. Worldwide, food and water borne diseases resulted from consuming unsafe drinking water source. The aim of this study is to assess preference for safe drinking water, risk perception on safe drinking water and factors associated with preference for safe drinking water among Hospital University Sains Malaysia (HUSM) outpatient clinic attendees in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 115 outpatient clinic attendees at HUSM from 1st February to 30th April 2011. Convenient sampling was applied and face to face interview was conducted among consented respondents. The questionnaire used consistad of sociodemographic data, preference for drinking water, perception on drinking water quality and safe drinking water, preventive measures taken and general knowledge on water and health. The proportion of preference for safe drinking water among HUSM outpatient clinic attendees is low at 30.4% (95% CI: 0.22, 0.39) compared to preference of unsafe drinking water source which is 69.6% (95% CI: 0.61, 0.78). The health risk perception toward safe drinking water is almost equal between those who have high perceived health risks and those with low perceived health which are 46.1% (95% CI: 0.37, 0.55) and 53.9% (95% CI: 0.45, 0.63) consecutively. The significant associated factors for preference of safe drinking water are current used of drinking water source and monthly household income status. Person who currently uses municipal water supply as their drinking water source has 14.32 times odds to prefer safe than person who uses drinking water other sources of drinking water (95% CI: 4.08,50.30, p <0.001). Person with low monthly household income status has 4.38 times odds to prefer unsafe drinking water than person who is below poverty line (95 % CI: 1.18, 16.19, p = 0.027). Furthermore, person with middle household income status has 9.28 times odds for preference of unsafe drinking water source than person who is below poverty line (95 % CI: 2.12, 40.59, p - 0.003). The proportion of preference of safe drinking water among HUSM outpatient clinic attendees is low. Health risk perceptions toward safe drinking water are worrisome. Effective public awareness campaigns and interventions to improve health risk perception, to build stronger confidence toward municipal water sources will enable public to make good decision on safe drinking water. Therefore, these will help to reduce incidence of health risk related to water borne diseases.
- Publication
- PublicationOptimization of wire and tube condenser in refrigeration cycle(2004-02-01)This thesis presents the experimental results of condenser that are commonly used in vapor compression cycle based on domestic refrigerators. The type of condenser that been used in this experiment is wire and tube condenser. A condenser was experimentally tested in a real refrigerator for some operating conditions. Based on an ideal performance of a wire and tube condenser, this experiment allowed a comparison between the actual result and the simulation one. The most important parameters that been measured is the temperature of the condenser surface at the point selected. This temperature will show whether the condenser operating at the required performance or not. Some change can be made to the condenser to make it operating at the maximum efficiency. In condenser optimization, the performance efficiency of the condenser can be change by changing the length and diameter of the wire and tube condenser. Pressure in the refrigeration cycle also influences the performance of the refrigerator. These things must be in a perfect set up in order to get a perfect operating refrigerator.
- PublicationPre-shift anxiety and its factors influencing among nursing students during clinical placement in Universiti Sains Malaysia Health Campus(2023)The term pre-shift anxiety can be easily searched from website or webpage, this simply means that this kind of anxiety is existed in this century. Surprisingly, there has been no research done regarding this issue. Pre-shift anxiety is an anticipatory anxiety that is used to describe healthcare students or healthcare professionals experiencing anxiety symptoms right before starting their shift in the day. Pre-shift anxiety can cause the healthcare students or healthcare professionals to feel anxious and panic right before starting their work and eventually negatively affect their performance. In a worse-case scenario, this can in turn negatively affect the patient care and patient outcomes. Undeniably, pre-shift anxiety is a recurring problem in healthcare but sadly this issue has not been paid enough attention by the authorities. Therefore, this study aims to determine the level of pre-shift anxiety and its factors influencing (self-confidence and sense of belonging) among the nursing students during clinical placement in Universiti Sains Malaysia Health Campus. A total of 135 nursing students of Universiti Sains Malaysia participated in this study by answering self-administered questionnaire through Google Form sent to them. The collected data was analyzed through SPSS version 26.0. Sociodemographic characteristics, the level of pre-shift anxiety and the level of self-confidence and sense of belongingness were presented in descriptive statistics. Besides, the association between sociodemographic characteristics, self-confidence, and sense of belongingness with pre-shift anxiety was analyzed by Pearson’s Chi Square and Independent T test. Expectedly, most of the nursing students in Universiti Sains Malaysia Health Campus are experiencing high level of pre-shift anxiety. However, self-confidence and sense of belongingness are not the main factors that influence the students to have pre-shift anxiety. Nevertheless, the findings of this study provide insight for the healthcare authorities or healthcare schools regarding the issues of pre-shift anxiety among healthcare students and healthcare professionals. Therefore, appropriate action or strategies should be taken to solve this issue and reduce pre-shift anxiety in healthcare settings so that patient outcomes can be improved, and quality care can be delivered.
Discover
Author
Organization
Has content in original bundle
true 4967
Entity type
Publication 4967