It is a very concerning situation we are having today when seeing youngsters showing less involvement and not being helpful toward the ones in need. Having children to be exposed to storybooks is to introduce them with moral values that help in building their characters. Storybooks are developed containing pedagogies adapted from the Quran that convey the value of prosocial behaviour effectively. The pedagogies are narrative, dialogue, repetition and questioning. Typography, illustrations and simplified phrases are additional elements that are also included. This research involved 60 children aged 5 to 6 years old from selected preschools in Malaysia. 30 children are presented with the original version of the storybooks and the rest are presented with modified storybooks. Modified Prosocial Behaviour Questionnaire which consists of 15 items is required to be filled during pre and post-test. There was no significant difference on the pretest (M= 32.07, SD= 3.89) and post-test (M= 32.80,.....

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Introducing a rail transit system into an urban region is expected to increase land values, and subsequently, residential property values. Despite this general belief, little is known about the spatial distributional effects of land value uplift. Thus, the goal of this paper is to provide new insights on how proximity to light rail transit stations may affect residential property values in Greater Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia using geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results provide information on spatial variations in the effects of a light rail transit system on residential property values. This study utilises GWR to account for spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence. The results suggest that residential property values benefit from the provision of a light rail transit system but with considerable spatial variation over a geographical area. Evidently, proximity to the nearest light rail transit station gives positive premiums of up to 8% for a majority of properties locate.....

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Online teaching and learning technologies become widely advocated and employed in higher education, researcher attempts to understand the suitability of such technologies in student learning. This paper presents a research study conducted in blended learning mode to design interactive online application of learning Music Theory. This discussion focuses on the appropriateness of selected content, instructional design, and technical aspect incorporated into authoring software with an option for interactivity and admirable support for audio video. In an interactive and effective design, a variety of media techniques including text, sound, pictures, video clips and animation were used to present the content of the Music Theory lesson. It included three development phases using the ADDIE instructional design model which can begin interactively to reinforce and test the self-learning of students. This study also involved the procedure of integrating the online interactive application of lear.....

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Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death in Malaysia. This study aims to explore the treatment experiences of patients with recurrent coronary heart disease during hospital admission and after discharge. This research also attempts to understand patients’ adherence to the prescribed treatment. Method: The main sample for this study includes inpatients and outpatients with recurrent CHD who have undergone secondary prevention treatment at certain tertiary hospitals which were purposively sampled. The transcripts of one-to-one semi-structured interviews (N=22) were analyzed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results: Three themes emerged in the analysis of treatment adherence among multi-ethnic patients with CHD: (i) doctor-patient relationships; (ii) information-seeking behaviour; and (iii) psychosocial beliefs. Other factors that influence treatment adherence include patients’ cultural, religious, or spiritual beliefs-based complementary a.....

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Purpose – Up to now a country-specific study on Qatar with respect to underground economy, illegal money and tax evasion has not been undertaken. This paper aims to contribute by separately estimating the magnitude of the underground economy in Qatar from 1980 to 2010 using adjusted currency demand function. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses the Zivot–Andrews unit root test for the stationarity analysis and applies the Gregory and Hansen long run cointegrating technique for estimating the underground economy based on the latest form of the currency demand function model. While the general to specific technique is used to estimate the short run error correction model. Findings – The results show that the average size of the underground economy in Qatar is about 17.03 per cent of the official gross domestic products (GDPs). The average level of tax evasion as a per cent of the total non-oil tax revenues is estimated at around 16.50 per cent and is about 2.12 per cent.....

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Improved estimates of the Malaysian Shadow Economy (SE), illegal money and corrections to the magnitude of SE using the ARDL technique based on the modified Currency Demand Function Model (CDFM) from 1972 to 2012 are provided in this paper. This study rectifies the failure in previous studies to capture the positive and symmetric relationships between the demand for money and per capita income. The use of the scale of real GDP in the Modified CDFM is necessary methodologically to obtain an accurate estimation of SE. This study combines the demand rate of deposits with circulated money as dependent variable, which is more liquid and thus may end up in SE. It considers inequality of the velocity of money in both economies (SE and the formal economy). The variables of opportunity cost of using money in their ratio level rather than logarithm form are used in the modified CDFM. The size of the SE in Malaysia has been fluctuating and averaged around 42.53% of GDP  ..

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The main aim of this study is to obtain the contract validity and reliability of social support assessment instrument to identify football talent among Malaysian male players aged 13 to 14 years old. Three sub attributes are used to measure the attributes of social support, which are family, teammates and coaches. A total of 120 male footballers aged 13 to 14 who underwent training under the Malaysia National Football Development Program were selected as study samples. Pearson correlation analysis were used to obtain validity of field experts. Cronbach’s alpha analysis were used to obtain reliability coefficient of the assessment instrument on social support. Factor analysis was used to obtain the construct validity of the questionnaire items. Findings of the study show that the construct validity of 35 questionnaire items of overall 60 items (r = .50), field expert validity (r = .96), reliability total value (α = .92) and the internal consistency coefficient for each sub attributes.....

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Gaya hidup sedentari adalah punca kemerosotan kesihatan yang sempurna. Setiap individu perlu mengambil langkah untuk menjaga kesihatan sejak muda sebaikbaiknya sebelum jisim badan mencapai paras kritikal. Kajian berbentuk tinjauan ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti tahap obesiti (BMI), tahap penglibatan aktiviti fizikal, penggunaan gajet untuk bersosial dan mengisi masa lapang di samping melihat perbezaannya berdasarkan jantina dalam kalangan belia di Daerah Muallim, Perak. Seramai 200 orang responden yang terdiri daripada 100 orang lelaki dan 100 orang perempuan yang berumur 20 hingga 40 tahun telah dipilih secara rawak mudah di persekitaran Daerah Muallim. Dapatan kajian bagi tahap obesiti dan risiko morbiditi berdasarkan norma BMI, WHO (2004) bagi masyarakat Asia menunjukkan bahawa 32 orang (16%) berada di tahap obes kelas II dengan risiko morbiditi yang sangat tinggi. 96 orang (48%) berada di tahap obes kelas I dengan risiko morbiditi yang tinggi. 14 orang (7%) berada di tahap Pre .....

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The purpose of this study is to compare the quality of groundwater during wet and dry seasons in Malaysia especially in Kuala Krai District which frequently involved in annual monsoon floods and the question whether the wells can be used during floods as well as an alternative source when there are no floods. Six sampling stations were selected using six main parameters which included DO, pH, BOD, COD, TSS and NH3N. The assessment was conducted based on the standards set by Malaysian INWQS and the classification of WQI. The results of the analysis showed that most of the water samples taken during the wet season had concentration values that did not meet the DOE standards such as the DO, BOD, and NH3N parameters. Based on the WQI classification, majority stations during the wet season were in moderately contaminated except for station T6 which was clean. On the contrary, during a dry season were found to be clean except for station T1 which was moderately contaminated. ..

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The mass media in the form of advertising is extensively employed in the process of nation-building in Malaysia. Advertising has been used as an important tool for educating the public about State issues, ensuring diverse cultures are equally represented and the multicultural values are emphasized to the fullest. The objective of the present study is to investigate how outdoor advertising, particularly billboards, promotes the language, social identity, and multicultural values of Malaysian society for nation-building. In Malaysia, the extensive use of advertisements has been argued as one of the most powerful mechanisms to enhance Malaysian identity, foster interactions and thus contribute to the process of nation-building even though it is portrayed in a banal and routine way. To achieve its objective, this paper utilizes semiotic methodology to examine 11 billboards to understand the relationships between texts and visuals that communicate messages to the public. The findings reveal.....

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