Zamalia Mahmud

Natural rubber-grafted with 30% poly(methylmethacrylate) characterization for application in lithium polymer battery

In this study, a composite plasticized polymer electrolytes (CPEs) compassed of 30% methyl grafted natural rubber (MG30) doped with lithium triflate (LiTf) and silicon dioxide (SiO2) was prepared by solution cast technique. The polymer-salt complexation has been confirmed by ATR-FTIR spectral studies. The CPEs were then investigated as an ionic conducting polymer. The conductivity of the CPEs was measured by AC impedance spectroscopy and shows that the sample containing 60 wt.% MG30:33 wt.% LiTf:7 wt.% SiO2 exhibit the highest conductivity of up to 10−4 S.cm−1 at room temperature. In order to understand the thermal effect on the ionic migration in the CPEs, temperature dependent-conductivity was performed as a function of temperature between 300 K and 363 K and demonstrates that the conductivity of CPEs depart from the Arrhenius rule. The modulus formalism studies establish the CPEs films behave as an ionic conductor and confirmed by ionic transference number.

The effect of composition nanofiller Al 2 O 3 to the conductivity, morphology and thermal properties of MG30-LiTf polymer electrolyte

Composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs) film was prepared using 30% PMMA grafted natural rubber (MG30), lithium triflate (LiTf) and Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3). The conductivity of these polymer electrolytes was studied by AC impedance spectroscopy. The highest value was achieved up to ~10-6 S/cm at 8 wt.% of Al2O3 in MG30-LiTf system. The increase in conductivity is associated to the increase of the segmental chain flexibility of the composited film indeed increases of the amorphous domain and was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra studies. Surface morphological analysis showed the sample with highest conductivity exhibited most homogenous in nature with reduces the glass transition temperature (Tg). The composited polymer electrolyte was found more stable at higher temperature compared to uncomposite samples.

Conductivity studies on 30% PMMA grafted NR-NH 4 CF 3 SO 3 gel polymer electrolytes

A gel polymer electrolyte composed of 30% PMMA grafted natural rubber (MG30), ammonium triflate (NH4CF3SO3) and ethylene carbonate (EC) as a plasticizer is described. The complexation between polymer and salt is observed by FTIR spectral studies. The band at 1728 cm-1 represents the C=O carbonyl group of MG30. The interaction is between the NH4+ cation and the oxygen atom of the C=O is confirmed since the IR spectrum show a shifting in the C=O stretching peak to lower wavenumber. The effect of plasticizer on the MG30-NH4CF3SO3 on the ionic conductivity is explained in terms of the plasticizer loading of the film. The temperature dependence of the conductivity of the polymer films obeys the Vogel-Tamman-Fulcher (VTF) relationship. The ionic transference number is calculated using Wagners polarization technique shows that the conducting species are predominantly due ions and hence showed the system is ionic conductor.

Homogeneous Climate Divisions for Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract Classification of Peninsular Malaysia was delineated by integrating in-situ temperature elements data and Geographical Information System (GIS) raster data. The principal component (PC) analysis was applied to long-term mean monthly temperature elements data for monsoon seasons. The first three principal components were chosen to be statistically significant, accounted for 96.5% of the variability in the 27 variables. These three components are related to the mean monthly variation in minimum temperature during monsoon season (first PC), the mean monthly variation in maximum and the mean temperature in southwest monsoon (second PC), and the mean monthly variation in maximum temperature during northeast monsoon (third PC). Cluster analyses were applied to create clusters of meteorological stations, of which six classes were formed. To determine cluster boundaries, interpolation analysis was applied to generate GIS raster data of factor scores. The supervised classification analysis was then performed to the generated GIS factor data. The result of a maximum likelihood classification produced three clusters when summarized by districts. Final classification results of climate divisions show rational climate regionalization that reveals control on temperature. The use of factor score GIS raster data effectively assists the generation of meteorological station clusters, grouped using only in-situ data.

Visualization of multiple response data via 2-D and 3-D colors representation

In this paper, we attempt to visualize the multiple response data based on the similarity distances in the responses provided by the survey subjects. The activity involved the transformation of two-dimensional (2-D) solutions into a 3-D space with application of selected colors on the data. This is a first attempt of multiple data transformation from 2-D visual of MDS output to a three-dimensional (3-D) space involving multiple responses of two gender groups. The similarity distance between the responses is used in producing the patterns. Hence, it is a critical success factor in presenting the visual of the multiple response clustering patterns. When the pattern is represented in 3-D space, the height of each object (the given coordinate) represents the summation of distance ratio between one coordinate to all other coordinates, in which, the ratio is the distance between two coordinates with relative to the maximum distance of two points in the data set. The visualization has been successfully created using a computerized engine that can calculate and produce Z coordinates for the third dimension, i.e., the height.

Exploring the Attitude of Managers towards Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Response to Public Sector Change: A Rasch Analysis

 Abstract—In enhancing performance of civil services, the Government of Malaysia has taken extensive change initiatives to continuously reform the administration of public sector in Malaysia. The Government Transformation Programme (GTP) has been introduced in 2009 with the aim of improving overall performance of civil personnel and to improve delivery of services towards public at large. Among other change initiatives taken is the implementation of KPI to measure performance of civil personnel. The purpose of this study is to provide extensive review of past literatures regarding to financial management reforms in Malaysian public sector organization which bring to establishment of KPI. This study also aims to investigate the attitude of public sector managers towards KPIs in response to GTP. A total of 40 useable responses were collected from June to August 2012 using a web-based survey. Data was analyzed using Rasch measurement and Winsteps @ 3.72.3. The study indicates that the public sector managers highly recognize the positive attitude towards KPIs as an important driver towards successful implementation of change.

Confounding effects of age, marital status and treatment on the cervical cancer stages among Malaysian women

Cervical cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer disease among women in developing countries including Malaysia. Several factors have been identified as contributing towards the development of cervical cancer but this study was carried out to investigate whether age, marital status, ethnicity could relate to the development of four cervical cancer stages (Stage I, Stage II, Stage III, and Stage IV). A record of 444 patients diagnosed with cervical cancer were obtained from a databank at Casemix Unit, Health Information Department in UKM Medical Centre. Multiway association tables were developed to test the homogenous and partial associations between the categorical variables using Likehood-Ratio statistics and residual analysis. The study found that most women were diagnosed with cervical cancer Stage II at the mean age of 57 years old. Age and treatment have also shown strong significant associations with cervical cancer stages. The estimated odds of being diagnosed with cervical cancer showed that married women in the age category of less than 57 years old were four times more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer Stage I rather than Stage II. Most were mainly treated with operations rather than other treatments at an early stage. Women at the age category of 66 years old and above who were diagnosed with cervical cancer were seven times more likely to have undergone radiotherapy treatment than women at the age of less than 45 years old while married women aged 46 years and above have high tendency of developing cervical cancer Stage I. It is strongly recommended for the Malaysian women to go for cervical cancer screening test before the age of 45 because this study had shown that majority were already diagnosed with cervical cancer stage II at the age of 50 and above. The type of treatment at earl

Considering race, mode of study, university and academic structure differences on behavioural intention to use information systems

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) models have demonstrated the influencing factors of information systems by using behavioral intention as one of the aspect to measure the use of information systems. In line with that, this approach is also supported by updated DeLone & McLean information success model by adding the intention to use variable in their famous Information Systems Success Model as a predecessor variable in order to measure the use of information systems. However, in the context of behavioral intention or intention to use, there has been very little effort to investigate the influences of individual differences towards intention to use information systems. This is true in the context of digital library in Malaysia specifically and in the developing countries, generally. This paper investigates the influences of age, gender, race, mode of study, universities and academic structure differences towards intention to use digital library (IUDL) by Malaysian postgraduate students who are in Malaysian research intensive universities. The result shows there is evidence of a significant difference in meanscore intention to use digital library (IUDL) between Malay and Chinese and between Chinese and Other races. However, there is no evidence of a significant difference in meanscore intention to use digital library (IUDL) between mode of studies, universities and academic programs. These results provided a proof to confirm the race difference is influencing factor in measuring the intention to use digital library while mode of study, universities and academic structure differences are does not a matter in measuring the intention to use digital library. Furthermore, this paper provides some suggestion in order to minimize the differences intention to use digital library among users.

Relationship between Workers’ General Happiness and Emotional Components @ PERMAIg©

This paper is intended to investigate workers’ happiness and the elements of their emotional effects. This is one of the most important and fundamental area under positive psychology. In positive psychology studies, various methods have been proposed to identify happiness using subjective evaluations. However, the discussion in this study is limited to examining the relationship between workers’ general happiness index and seven emotional components that concerns happiness. Based on a sample of 9,654 respondents, this study was set out to identify whether seven emotional components based on the PERMAIg© model are related to the estimated general happiness using partial least square regression method. The results show that MLR and PLS regression analysis are similar in upper and lower five partial regression coefficients of the dependent variable. The number of significant items distributed on seven components lead to the total amount of variation of 37%. It can be concluded that the results are model independent, and the obtained weights of happiness elements are reliable to explain the workers’ happiness.

Measurement invariance of perceived learning of business statistics through e-learning platform

The measurement of invariance is a stable relationship between items and traits that have the same psychometric properties across the groups. Measurement invariance is crucial in statistics where the responses are based on students’ perceived learning of Business Statistics. In this study, this issue relates to the students’ perceived learning of Business Statistics across different profiles who deal with different methods of solving statistical problems. This requires students to have multiple skills such as calculation and computational skills, thinking skills and analytical skills. One of the most important topics perceived by students to be difficult to grasp is hypothesis testing, which became more challenging when the Business Statistics learning is conducted using e-learning platform as students are required to learn statistics in a virtual environment. This study served two purposes. Firstly, to determine the invariance across different profiles of students and secondly, to investigate the students’ perceived learning of Business Statistics through e-learning platform. One hundred and fourteen (114) undergraduate students enrolled in the Statistics for Business and Social Sciences (STA404) course have participated in the study. Data was collected from the Accountancy and Hotel Management students using a survey instrument which was developed for the purpose of obtaining the initial perception of students’ learning of Business Statistics through e-learning platform. The data was analysed using software Winsteps 3.90 based on the Rasch measurement model. The analysis focused on structural information and differential item functioning. The results showed that male students have positive initial perceptions towards learning Business Statistics through e-learning. Rasch Measurement Model revealed measurement invariance existed across both group of students’ gender and their faculties (Accountancy and Hotel Management) through differential item functioning.