The study aimed to investigate the reinforcement of plasticized poly(lactic acid) (PLA) with titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanofiller. In this research, solvent casting and thermocompression methods are adopted to prepare PLA nanocomposites with different percentages of TiO2 at 0.5, 2.0, 3.5, 5.0, and 7.0 %?w/w that dispersed in PLA solution using a mechanical mixer and ultrasonication technique. The composites were characterized using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results showed that tributyl citrate (TBC) plasticizer reduced the brittle failure and increased the flexibility of PLA whilst TiO2 nanofiller improved the crystallization of PLA composites as evidenced in DSC results at slow scanning rate. The presence of 3.5 %?w/w TiO2 in plasticized PLA increased the glass transition temperature (Tg) from 41.75 °C to 42.22 °C indicating restricted mobility of poly.....

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In the past decade, considerable amount of researches investigated the influence of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on consumer behavioral intention. Accordingly, this has driven the current study to achieve its objective which is to determine the influence of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on consumer consumer behavioral intention among youth in Malaysia. Embarking on the quantitative methodology, a survey is conducted among 469 university students who enrolled to a compulsory university course. The results showed that hedonic and utilitarian shopping values had positive influence on the youth consumer behavioral intention. This implies that shopping mall developers should consider hedonic and utilitarian preferences in terms of the design, selection of stores and functionality in creating a shopping mall particularly in serving youth market segment...

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Purpose of this paper to examine the relationship between financial engineering and financial performance in Iraq commercial banks. Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were collected from Iraq commercial banks, 130 employees working in Iraq commercial banks. The data were analyzed using structural equation method via Smart PLS 3.0 to examine relationship between financial engineering and financial performance in Iraq commercial banks. Findings: P value shows that there is positive significant relationship between investment strategies and financial performance. In addition, the result shows the direct effects between strategic investment and financial performance. The findings of the study discovered that technological innovation is not significant. Moreover, there is positive relationship between technological innovation and financial performance in Iraq commercial banks. In addition, P value shows that 0.000. The result shows the positive relationship between investment strategies an.....

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Razak Abdul Aziz (1959 - ) has been inking down his music from the early 1980?s. Still writing new   works,  he  had  composed  music  for  various  medium  of  instrumentations  – giving special  attention to the piano either as  a soloist or a collaborator.  Although this composer  has  been   in  the  contemporary  music  scene  for  nearly  40  years,  scholarly writings  on  his   compositions  are  extremely  scarce.  His  works  were  only  actively performed  in  the  early   1990s  and  only  starting  to  regain  attention  in  the  recent  years, locally and abroad. This  practice-led research focuses on my take as a co-creator of the selected piano works of Razak Abdul  Aziz, viewing it using Rosenblatt?s three principles of  Transactional  Theory,  while  quoting   examples  of  inspirations  in  works  by  other composers to set the tone of the theoretical  frameworks of this dissertation. Th.....

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Acquiring reading comprehension is a very challenging task especially among English as a second   language  readers as it does  not only depend  on the  information in the printed text but also on  the activation of information or schemata in the reader’s mind. Schema theory   proposes   that   a    reader’s   background   knowledge   impacts   memory,   reading comprehension,  interpretation   and  reading  rate.  The  purpose  of  this  research  was  to investigate the impact of cultural  based texts on reading comprehension in a multi-racial setting. An exploratory case study research  design was used in this research. The retelling technique  in  written  form  and  an  interview   was  used  as  instruments  in  this  research  to find  out  respondents’  comprehension  of  the   culturally  familiar  and  unfamiliar  texts.  In addition, a comprehension test was administered  to gather data. The re.....

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Kajian   ini   dijalankan   untuk   membuat   penambahbaikan   komponen   ujian   dalam SEGAK  dan   pembinaan  indeks  ke  atas  pelajar  perempuan  berumur  13  tahun  di Wilayah   Zon   Keramat,    Kuala   Lumpur.   Kajian   ini   menggunakan   reka   bentuk kuantitatif dengan kaedah normatif.  Instrumen yang digunakan dalam kajian ini ialah Indeks Jisim Tubuh, Lompat Jauh Berdiri, Bangkit  Tubi Lutut Bengkok, Kelenturan dan PACER. Seramai 240 orang sampel pelajar perempuan berumur 13  tahun di lima buah  sekolah  menengah  dipilih  secara  persampelan  berstrata,  rawak  berlapis   dan rawak mudah. Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Zon R1 Wangsa Maju (n=56), Sekolah Menengah   Kebangsaan  Seri  Titiwangsa  (n=15),  Sekolah  Menengah  Kebangsaan Puteri Ampang (n=63), Sekolah  Menengah Kebangsaan Wangsa Melawati (n=48) dan Sekolah  Menengah  Kebangsaan  Setapak  Indah   (n=58)  telah  terpilih  sebagai  .....

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This study was aimed to increase the performance of the Predicting Student Academic Performance (PSAP) system, and the outcome is to develop a web application that can be used to analyze student performance during present semester. Development of the web-based application was based on the evolutionary prototyping model. The study also analyses the accuracy of the classifier that is constructed for the prediction features in the web application. Qualitative approaches by user evaluation questionnaire were used for this study. A number of few personnel expert users which are lecturers from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris were chosen as respondents. Each respondent is instructed to answer a total of 27 questions regarding respondent’s background and web application design. The accuracy of the classifier for the prediction features is tested by using the confusion matrix by using the test set of 24 rows. The findings showed the views of respondents on the aspects of interface design, .....

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Secara khususnya, tujuan kajian ini dijalankan adalah untuk mengenal pasti kesediaan guru dalam penerapan identiti budaya tempatan bagi mata pelajaran seni di sekolah antarabangsa, menganalisa minat sedia ada murid-murid terhadap identiti budaya tempatan bagi mata pelajaran seni, dan menilai faktor-faktor yang menyumbang dalam penerapan identiti budaya tempatan. Oleh itu sebuah modul pengajaran dan pembelajaran (PdP) untuk guru seni di sekolah antarabangsa akan dihasilkan. Kaedah yang digunakan kualitatif. Kaedah pengumpulan data adalah secara pemerhatian, temu bual, tugasan; serta soal selidik untuk menyokong hasil dapatan. Sampel terdiri daripada 17 orang murid Tahun 5 yang bersekolah di ITQAN Integrated School yang mempelajari mata pelajaran seni di sekolah tersebut dan merupakan. murid-murid tempatan, manakala reponden temubual adalah guru-guru seni sekolah tersebut serta beberapa orang murid Tahun 5. Bagi mengenal pasti kesediaan guru dalam penerapan identiti budaya tempatan, berd.....

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The study aimed to identify the use of modern teaching methods at the higher education phase for Arabic language professors- a case of a Premier University. The researcher used the analytical descriptive method, based on the survey method and she has prepared a tool that includes 42 responses. The sample was 27 lecturers and the recovery rate was 88%. The data analysis showed that there is approval of the use of modern teaching methods among the lecturer by 83.6%. The results showed that the method of the lecture is the most common while the least common in the laboratory. As for the justifications, a large number of students, the difficulty of controlling them and the inability of lecturers to apply some methods in practice are among the most common reasons for not using some modern teaching methods...

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The purpose of this research is to measure the validity of Children Abused Module. This research also conducted through survey method. Research sample are from eight professionals expertise in the field of psychology counselling, modules, practitioners, officers in charge of abused cases, nongovernment association and policy makers. Results show that the whole panel agreeing that Children Abused Module is seemly as a module of knowledge, awareness and skills module to the officers in prevention institution. Results also showed that coefficient validity of this module is 0.83 which is high. Then the correlation coefficient validity of suitability of the activities in this module is 0.90. Results also showed that experts had suggested that this module set up a target as it is clearer and group activities also need to involve all members, facilitators need to adjust language usage according to target and make a conclusion in each activity  ..

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