In this study, hybrid RPCA-spectral biclustering model is proposed in identifying the Peninsular Malaysia rainfall pattern. This model is a combination between Robust Principal Component Analysis (RPCA) and biclustering in order to overcome the skewness problem that existed in the Peninsular Malaysia rainfall data. The ability of Robust PCA is more resilient to outlier given that it assesses every observation and downweights the ones which deviate from the data center compared to classical PCA. Meanwhile, two way-clustering able to simultaneously cluster along two variables and exhibit a high correlation compared to one-way cluster analysis. The experimental results showed that the best cumulative percentage of variation in between 65%-70% for both Robust and classical PCA. Meanwhile, the number of clusters has improved from six disjointed cluster in Robust PCA-kMeans to eight disjointed cluster for the proposed model. Further analysis shows that the proposed model has smaller variatio.....

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One of the popular approaches in modifying the Conjugate Gradient (CG) Method is hybridization. In this paper, a new hybrid CG is introduced and its performance is compared to the classical CG method which are RivaieMustafa-Ismail-Leong (RMIL) and Syarafina-Mustafa-Rivaie (SMR) methods. The proposed hybrid CG is evaluated as a convex combination of RMIL and SMR method. Their performance are analyzed under the exact line search. The comparison performance showed that the hybrid CG is promising and has outperformed the classical CG of RMIL and SMR in terms of the number of iterations and central processing unit per time..

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This study aimed to examine the relationship between transparency and corporate financial performance. This study based on a sample of 25 corporations listed on Iraq stock exchange (ISX). Information related to research variables is for 2014-2017 (4-year period). To investigate the association between variables of this research, the transparency (ownership structure and stakeholder’s rights (OWSR), financial and nonfinancial information (FNF) and board of directors (BOD) dimensions) as independent variable and corporate financial performance based on accounting data, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and return on investment (ROI) as dependent variable are considered. In this study, to analyze research data and the models estimation, the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression test was used. For this purpose, 80 items were analyzed in three indictors which are ownership structure and stakeholder’s rights, financial and non-financial information and board structure using.....

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This study aimed to explore how religious values are integrated into entrepreneurial activities among students in Public Higher Education Institutions (PHEI) to develop holistic and entrepreneurial students in Malaysia. The study was conducted at three public higher education institutions in the state of silver. Respondents consist of staff and students involved in entrepreneurship programs or activities. Quantitative and qualitative approaches are used to gain a more accurate picture of the integration of religious values and entrepreneurial activities. Descriptive analysis is used to analyze quantitative data, while thematic analysis is for qualitative data. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the level of religious and moral values in student entrepreneurship activities. The findings also showed a high degree of application of religious values in entrepreneurship activities. However, there are no specific policies for integrating religious values into en.....

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In this article, we describe the construction and operation of a low-cost experimental system to demonstrate the fundamental concepts of solar photovoltaic cells. The major goal of this project is to provide students with basic instrumentation and methodologies to learn fundamental concepts of solar photovoltaic cell and its application. The system runs under the Windows operating system and is composed of an Arduino UNO ATmega328p data acquisition board as well as current and voltage sensing elements. A software written under the open-source programming language platform was used to program the microcontroller while the sun path simulation software was used for tracking the sun. The site location coordinates were determined by using a Google maps application. The experiments were performed throughout the day and the current and voltage data were automatically captured and graphically presented in an excel spreadsheet. It was found that the fill factor and power conversion efficiency o.....

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Flood disaster that occurred in the Kuala Krai district has caused property damage and important data loss in government premises such as schools, rural clinics, and so on. Service record book is among the important documents that were also destroyed. This book is important because all information related to service management will be recorded in the book. A prototype of teacher service record book was built to help solve the problem of such information loss. Meanwhile, usability evaluation was conducted on the system to identify whether it meets user needs. Usability evaluation on the prototype was carried out using four attributes, namely efficiency, effectiveness, ease of learning, and security...

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Conventional classroom teaching and learning of programming tends to be didactic, which is usually tends to be monotonous and less interesting. In learning programming – a subject that is deemed extremely challenging to master – such a situation can have a serious repercussion in that students can easily become unmotivated and demoralized to learn. As such, students need to use relevant learning tools that can stimulate and motivate them to learn such a course. Of late, many researchers have started using online game-based learning (GBL) tools to improve students’ motivation and performance. Invariably, most of the studies mainly focused on GBL tools to move avatars. As such, this study focuses on programming as the activities in such a game. In this study, the researchers used the prototyping model to develop an online GBL application called Prog-GBL by integrating the elements of mastery learning approach and ARCS model to help motivate students in learning programming. The eva.....

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Of late, a number of studies have been carried out to infuse the concept of Computational Thinking into programming courses, given that such a concept and programming are closely intertwined. Admittedly, most instructors find teaching programming to be very challenging, especially to novice students. Currently, the dominant teaching approaches used to teach computer programming mainly involve lectures, discussions, and lab practical sessions. Nevertheless, the use of such approaches has been heavily criticized for their ineffectiveness in developing skillful students because of the minimal interaction between students and teachers, especially in large classes. Coupled with the lack of proper teaching aids, the problem is further aggravated, putting the students in a dire situation. Against this backdrop, the authors carried out a study to examine the prevailing problems in the current teaching technique used by programming instructors in teaching programming to novice students, to dete.....

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The purpose of this research is to propose a new approach for evaluating the quality of the exam questions. Exam results were obtained from students taking the statistics and probability course in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). The number of exam questions is set by 10 questions with 30 items that have varying degrees of difficulty. A total of 214 students' results have been extracted from the iCGPA system. “Multidimensional Item Response Analysis (MIRA)” was applied for the 1PL (Rasch), 2PL and 3PL models to evaluate the quality of the exam questions. The models were estimated using MH-RM algorithm in the R package. Model fitting comparison is based on the log-likelihood, SE, AIC and BIC statistics. The statistic and Zh statistic were calculated to identify the item misfit and person misfit. Through model fittings, all three models give the value of all acceptable and almost identical statistic. 5 items are considered as misfit by the 1PL model. For the 2PL and 3PL models, 5 it.....

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This study aims to verify green practice constructs using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A total of 100 secondary school students were selected as a study sample using a simple random sampling technique. The green practice constructs consisted of five major subconstructs, paper resource management practices, electricity-saving practices, water-saving practices, recycling, and eco-friendly product consumption. The constructs included 37 items and used a five-point Likert scale. The data obtained were processed through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to ascertain the structure of the green practice determinants. Then, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to find the measurement model for each construct using AMOS software. The results showed that the measurement model fit the data obtained which the value of the fit indices of CMIN/DF, TLI, CFI, IFI, NFI and RMSEA were used to produce the appropriate model. As a result, a total of 17 items were retained, consisting o.....

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