This paper concerns with the effect of exchange rate on gross domestic product (GDP) in the five founding member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN-5) namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines. From theoretical perspective, exchange rate depreciation is a sign of economic failure in developing countries. However national economic perspective shows its merit in the increasing size of output. In this paper analysis, a set of panel data is used in which the time period was from 1980 to 2014 for the exchange rate variable of each member country. For the variable of GDP, the time period was from 1981 to 2015. In the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, the real exchange rate coefficient had a statistically significant effect on the GDP level in the five member countries. The results showed that exchange rate depreciation would cause an increase in the countries' level of GDP. The implication from this research is that exchange ra.....

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The Malaysian Government has been continuously encouraging the engineers, the practitioners, and the construction industry to use the Industrialised Building System (IBS), which is considered to be an important part of modern method approach of construction. According to Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), there are five main parts of IBS, namely precast component systems, steel framing systems, formworks systems, prefabricated timber framing systems, and blockwork systems, which have started to replace the traditional construction method. The objective of this study is to identifies the blockwork manufacturing process and also to identifies the decisive factor to setting up blockwork manufacturing plant. The methodology used in this study is relied on the qualitative approach. Data collection process was done by conducting observation to the location of the blockwork manufacturer and conducting interview with duration 45 minutes to 1 hour. The number of interviewee that in.....

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The construction industry makes up an important part of the Malaysian economy. Due to unpleasant working condition and the availability of cheap foreign worker, government has implemented the Industrialised Building System (IBS) for government project. This study aims to identify the payment issue of Industrialised Building System (IBS) in Malaysian construction industry and propose the recommendation to the IBS industry to make a better financial management for IBS project. This study employs quantitative and qualitative approach to collect information on the payment issue of Industrialised Building System (IBS) which involved contractor, manufacturer, developer and academician. This study is expected to help the contractor to maintain their business with especially at the early stage of construction which involved huge capital investment for the IBS project. The outcome of this study will encourage construction industry especially IBS contractor to have better understanding on financ.....

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Traditional approaches are still dominant in virtually all construction projects in Malaysia. This was highlighted as the main barrier for further developing the Industrialised Building System (IBS) construction process. Indeed, traditional approaches implemented in IBS have been recognised by several studies as failing to support effective work teams when team processes are disconnected from each other (fragmented), thus failing to produce an effective communication process. Additionally, IBS construction involves large numbers of teams with different expertise and from different organisations, all of which are handled by different numbers of management processes, for instance in planning, manufacturing, transportation, positioning and assembling the structures that involve minimal additional site work. With the increasing demand in building bigger and better buildings and structures, construction projects are becoming more complex to manage by project managers, as they have to manage.....

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The Construction Industry Development Board of Malaysia has been actively promoting the use of precast manufacturing in the local construction industry over the last decade. In an era of rapid technological changes, precast manufacturing significantly contributes to improving construction activities and ensuring sustainable economic growth. Current studies on the location decision of precast manufacturing plants aimed to enhanced local economic development are scarce. To address this gap, the present research establishes a new set of spatial criteria, such as attribute maps and preference weights, derived from a survey of local industry decision makers. These data represent the input parameters for the MCE-GIS site selection model, for which the weighted linear combination method is used. Verification tests on the model were conducted to determine the potential precast manufacturing sites in the state of Penang, Malaysia. The tests yield a predicted area of 12.87 acres located within a.....

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Our research group is focusing on luminescence of coordination compounds which based on cyanide bridging interactions. Recently, four cyanometallate complexes based on Ir(III) complex [Ir(ppy)2(CN)2] -,which is one of an extensive family of Ir(III) complexes based on cyclometallating phenylpyridine ligands that have achieved prominence for their desirable photophysical properties, were successfully synthesised. The present study showed that, the introduction of fluorine atoms to the phenyl rings could enhance the triplet excited state energy and thus caused a blue-shift phosphorescence peak (λem = 453 nm) as shown by (PPN)[Ir(2,4-F2ppy)2(CN)2] (1) compared to that of complex without fluorine atom (PPN)[Ir(ppy)2(CN)2] (4) (λem=474 nm). However, (PPN)[Ir(3,5-F2ppy)2(CN)2] (2) shows a negligible hypsochromic shift (λem = 473 nm) in the emission. Conversely, (PPN)[Ir(4-CF3ppy)2(CN)2] (3) shows a red-shift (λem = 479 nm) compared to complex (4). These complexes, like [Ru(bipy)(CN)4] 2âˆ.....

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A new compound, namely zinc hydroxide nitrate-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)propionate (ZHN-MPP) nanocomposite, was prepared using the ion exchange and coprecipitation methods. The resulting nanocomposite was composed of the herbicide MPP sandwiched between ZHN inorganic layers. From PXRD results, the intercalation of MPP anions into the interlayer of ZHN was successful, leading to the expansion of the interlayer of ZHN at 26.9 and 26.1 Ã… with the ion exchange and co-precipitation methods respectively. The intercalation of layered material is confirmed by PXRD pattern. FTIR spectra for both nanocomposites revealed the presence of MPP in the interlayer of ZHN-MPP nanocomposites. Based on TGA/DTG analysis, the ZHN-MPP nanocomposite prepared by the ion exchange method was found to have greater thermal stability than the one synthesized by the co-precipitation method. The intercalation was also supported by ICP-OES and CHNO-S analysis, which confirmed the presence of C and Zn in the resultant nanoco.....

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The intercalation of chloroacetic acid (CAA) into the interlayer gallery of zinc layered hydroxide has been achieved via a facile direct reaction method. The nanohybrid synthesised, zinc layered hydroxide-chloroacetate was characterised using Powder X-ray diffraction patterns (PXRD), which demonstrated the progressive evolution of the nanohybrid structure, as the CAA molarity were increased from 0.05 to 0.3 M. Sharp and symmetrical peaks of 0.3 M CAA were observed in the PXRD pattern. The emergence of intercalation peak, with basal spacing of 14.3 Ã… signifying the success intercalation of chloroacetate anions into the interlayer space of the host.The intercalation was also validated by FTIR spectroscopy and CHNS elemental analyser. The increased thermal stability of zinc layered hydroxide-chloroacetate nanohybrid was confirmed by thermogravimetric analysis..

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The intercalation of L-phenylalanate (LP) into the interlayer gallery of zinc layered hydroxide (ZLH) has been successfully executed using a simple direct reaction method. The synthesised intercalation compound, zinc layered hydroxide-L-phenylalanate (ZLH-LP), was characterised using PXRD, FTIR, CHNS, ICP-OES, TGA/ DTG, FESEM and TEM. The PXRD patterns of the intercalation compound demonstrate an intense and symmetrical peak, indicating a well-ordered crystalline layered structure. The appearance of an intercalation peak at a low angle of 2θ with a basal spacing of 16.3 Å, signifies the successful intercalation of the Lphenylalanate anion into the interlayer gallery of the host. The intercalation is also validated by FTIR spectroscopy and CHNS elemental analysis. Thermogravimetric analysis confirms that the ZLH-LP intercalation compound has higher thermal stability than the pristine L-phenylalanine. The observed percentage of Lphenylalanate accumulated release varies in each release .....

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The heterologous protein production in Aspergillus niger is often limited by the activity of the host extracellular proteases. To improve heterologous production, a transcription factor controlling expression of several extracellular protease-encoding genes, prtT, was deleted in A. niger PY11 and the mutant (AnprtT) characterised.Extracellular proteolytic activity of AnprtT was reduced as compared to the wild type, a result that was confirmed by RT-PCR analyses that showed reduced expression levels of several protease gene transcripts. To compare the efficiency of the mutant and parental (PY11) strains as hosts for heterologous protein production, the cutinase gene from Glomerella cingulate, under control of the glucoamylase A promoter, was integrated into each genome. The cutinase activity of PY11 and AnprtT harbouring the G. cingulata cutinase gene was increased 20- and 36-fold higher, respectively, than the untransformed parental strains, suggesting that the ability of the mutant to.....

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