• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.76 no.3
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• pp.249-255
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• 1987

Forestry as with all land matters, under the Constitution, is a State matter. Thus the States, numbering 14, have considerable autonomy in decisions on forestry and related matters. However, the Federal Government, having jurisdiction over such issues as defence, education and research, endeavours to coordinate, standardise and advise the States on matters where the States have jurisdiction. However, forestry being a major revenue earner, is jealously guarded by the States. Under such circumstances and recognising the interdependencies of impacts of decisions at the State level, the institutional organisations play an important role in coordinating state activities to ensure that the benefits to the country as a whole are not sacrificed in favour of interests of individual state. Various legislative mechanisms have been established to ensure this coordinated effort. A National Forestry Council forms the apex of national political coordination. The Federal Forestry Department is responsible for coordination of developmental activities at the State level, which are implemented be the State Forestry Departments within Peninsular Malaysia. Research is carried out centrally by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia(FRIM), a statutory body formed in 1985 from a research division of the Forestry Department. The Stares of Sabah and Sarawak have their own Forestry Departments, independent of the Federal Department, and each with its own research unit independent of FRIM. Tertiary education in forestry is the sole responsibility of the Agricultural University at Serdang with a campus for Diploma level training in Sarawak. In the developmental area in the State of Sabah, institutions have been formed to focus on specific areas of activities. The Sabah Foundation is responsible for the long term development of the State forests with a concession of about one million ha. Sabah Forest Development Authority(SAFODA) was formed to carry out reforestation of denuded areas. Sabah Forest Industries Ltd.(SFI) is responsible for the country's only integrated pulp and paper industry with its own afforestation program to support its resource supply. In Peninsular Malaysia various states have established State Corporations to manage large "sustained yield" concessions. While wildlife and state parks are managed by the respective forestry departments in Sabah and Sarawak, it is the responsibility of a separate department in Peninsula Malaysia called the Department of Wildlife and National Parks(under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment). Timber trade legislation and promotion in the Peninsular is the responsibility of the Malaysian Timber Industries Board(MTIB) for Peninsular Malaysia and the Sarawak Timber Industries Development Corporation(STIDC) in Sarawak. In the area of NGOs ; the Institute of Foresters Malaysia, is the professional body of forestry in the country. A Malaysian Forestry Society caters for the public participation and interest. Other environmentally related NGOs such as the Malayan Nature Society, the Environmental Protection Society, World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth and the Consumers Associations also involve themselves in specific forestry activities. A number of timber trade associations are also formed by the private sector to assist the industries.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.642-648
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• 2009

Determining the total duration for a construction project is an integral part of project management in the construction industry. This is to ensure the project and all its associated activities can be carried out and completed within the time frame stipulated. There are several commonly used scheduling methods and techniques in project management, some of which involves manual calculation while others involve computer software. This paper looks into the various time determination methods, extracting out their differences and similarities. It also seeks to draw out the problems when determining time for projects, especially those encountered of case studies. Based on the results from the case studies, there were delays on certain projects even though time determination had been carried out rigorously prior to the commencement of the projects. This paper seeks to develop a time determination model, which incorporates risk management techniques into the calculations in order to improve the method for time estimation to minimize the chances of project delay.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.79-111
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• 2016

Malaya attained independence on August 31, 1957 from Britain. However this new nation faced a communist insurgency known today as the "Malayan Emergency" (1948-1960). Then in 1961, Tunku announced a wider federation of "Malaysia", viz. Malaya, British Crown Colonies of Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo, and the protectorate of Brunei. Countering communism was a principal motive for "Malaysia". Sarawak's leftist elements were rejected with an armed opposition. Malaysia was formed excluding Brunei. Amidst its birth pangs, Malaysia faced hostile neighbors Indonesia and the Philippines; the former objected by way of Konfrontasi (1963-1967) while the latter laid claim to Sabah (formerly North Borneo). Malaya/ Malaysia was borne in the midst of the Cold War (1947-1991), a bipolar world between the US and the USSR. Malaya/Malaysia is utilized as a case of analysis and evaluation in the context of the twin trends of continuities and transformations in tracing the historical developments from the 1950's to the 1990's. The risks, motives, and challenges that prompted the shift in foreign relations reveal as much of the personality of the political leadership, the prevailing situations, and conditions from within and circumstances from without.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Entomolohy Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.58-58
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• 2002

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.170-178
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• 2012

Dipterocarps or Dipterocarpaceae is a commercially important timber producing and dominant keystone tree family in the rain forests of Borneo. Borneo's landscape is changing at an unprecedented rate in recent years which affects this important biodiversity. This paper attempts to model the natural occurrence (distribution including those areas with natural forests before being converted to other land uses as opposed to current distribution) of dipterocarp species in Sarawak which is important for forest biodiversity conservation and management. Local modeling method of Inverse Distance Weighting was compared with commonly used statistical method (Binary Logistic Regression) to build the best natural distribution models for three genera (12 species) of dipterocarps. Database of species occurrence data and pseudoabsence data were constructed and divided into two halves for model building and validation. For logistic regression modeling, climatic, topographical and edaphic parameters were used. Proxy variables were used to represent the parameters which were highly (p>0.75) correlated to avoid over-fitting. The results show that Inverse Distance Weighting produced the best and consistent prediction with an average accuracy of over 80%. This study demonstrates that local interpolation method can be used for the modeling of natural distribution of dipterocarp species. The Inverse Distance Weighted was proven a better method and the possible reasons are discussed.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.35-45
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• 2016

To resolve the problems of Poisson/impulse noise, blurriness, and sharpness in degraded X-ray images, a novel and efficient enhancement algorithm based on X-ray image fusion using a discrete wavelet transform is proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithm consists of two basics. First, it applies the techniques of boundary division to detect Poisson and impulse noise corrupted pixels and then uses the Wiener filter approach to restore those corrupted pixels. Second, it applies the sharpening technique to the same degraded X-ray image. Thus, it has two source X-ray images, which individually preserve the enhancement effects. The details and approximations of these sources X-ray images are fused via different fusion rules in the wavelet domain. The results of the experiment show that the proposed algorithm successfully combines the merits of the Wiener filter and sharpening and achieves a significant proficiency in the enhancement of degraded X-ray images exhibiting Poisson noise, blurriness, and edge details.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.81-95
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• 2018

Most buildings feature core walls (and shear walls) that are placed eccentrically within the building to fulfil architectural requirements. Contemporary earthquake design standards require three dimensional (3D) dynamic analysis to be undertaken to analyse the imposed seismic actions on this type of buildings. A static method of analysis is always appealing to design practitioners because results from the analysis can always be evaluated independently by manual calculation techniques for quality control purposes. However, the equivalent static analysis method (also known as the lateral load method) which involves application of an equivalent static load at a certain distance from the center of mass of the buildings can generate results that contradict with results from dynamic analysis. In this paper the Generalised Force Method of analysis has been introduced for multi-storey buildings. Algebraic expressions have been derived to provide estimates for the edge displacement ratio taking into account the effects of dynamic torsional actions. The Generalised Force Method which is based on static principles has been shown to be able to make accurate estimates of torsional actions in seismic conditions. The method is illustrated by examples of two multi-storey buildings. Importantly, the black box syndrome of a 3D dynamic analysis of the building can be circumvented.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.352-358
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• 2018

This research paper investigates available options for implementing clean development mechanism (CDM) project in Sarawak state, Malaysia. To investigate economic feasibility, data was collected using survey and field research methods. Also, economic analysis was estimated using net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period (PBP) during the 30 years CDM: afforestation and reforestation periods. The result of economic analysis indicated that, the payback period was estimated at 9 years with 18 percent of internal rate of return (IRR). This study also highlighted that CDM biomass supply project have a lot of challenges due to the reduction and exclusion of bio-Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF), supply and demand scenario, and impact of restriction of illegal logging in Malaysia. This study results demonstrate the methodology and guideline for future CDM investment and projects.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.105-120
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• 2011

The strengthening and rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures with externally bonded carbon fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates has shown excellent performance and, as a result, this technology is rapidly replacing steel plate bonding techniques. This paper addresses this issue, and presents results deals with the influence of external bonded CFRP-reinforcement on the time-dependent behavior of reinforced concrete beams. A total of eight reinforced concrete beams with cracked and un-cracked section, with and without externally bonded CFRP laminates, were investigated for their creep and shrinkage behavior. All the beams considered in this paper were simply supported and subjected to a uniform sustained loading for the period of six months. The main parameters of this study are two types of sustained load and different degrees of strengthening scheme for both cracked and un-cracked sections of beams. Both analytical and experimental work has been carried out on strengthened beams to investigate the cracking and deflection performance. The applied sustained load was 56% and 38% of the ultimate static capacities of the un-strengthened beams for cracked and un-cracked section respectively. The analytical values based on effective modulus method (EMM) are compared to the experimental results and it is found that the analytical values are in general give conservative estimates of the experimental results. It was concluded that the attachment of CFRP composite laminates has a positive influence on the long term performance of strengthened beams.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.1-12
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• 2021

Altman's Z-score is used to measure a company's financial health and to predict the probability that a company will collapse within 2 years. It is proven to be very accurate to forecast bankruptcy in a wide variety of contexts and markets. The goal of this study is to use Altman's Z-score model to forecast insolvency in non-financial publicly traded enterprises. Non-financial firms are a significant industry in Malaysia, and current trends of consolidation and long-term government subsidies make assessing the financial health of such businesses critical not just for the owners, but also for other stakeholders. The sample of this study includes 84 listed companies in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. Of the 84 companies, 52 are considered high risk, and 32 are considered low-risk companies. Secondary data for the analysis was gathered from chosen companies' financial reports. The findings of this study show that the Altman model may be used to forecast a company's financial collapse. It dispelled any reservations about the model's legitimacy and the utility of applying it to predict the likelihood of bankruptcy in a company. The findings of this study have significant consequences for investors, creditors, and corporate management. Portfolio managers may make better selections by not investing in companies that have proved to be in danger of failing if they understand the variables that contribute to corporate distress.