extended abstract...wan nur azira wan mohamed salleh, siti zaleha abdul rasid & rohaida...

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

International Professional Doctoral Symposium 2019

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The International Professional Doctoral Symposium

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 30th November 2019

Extended Abstract

Organized by:

School of Graduate Studies

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Tel: +607-5537903 (office)

Fax: +607-5537800

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.sps.utm.my

In collaboration with:

UTM Postgraduate Student Society (PGSS-UTM)


Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.utm.my/ipdocs/

http://www.sps.utm.my/

http://www.utm.my/ipdocs/


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ISBN: 978-967-2171-04-9

Copyright © 2019 by School of Graduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. All rights

reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by

any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,

without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright

law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions

Coordinator,” at the address below.

Chair

School of Graduate Studies


Aras 8 Menara Razak

Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra

54100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

https://sps.utm.my/

First Printing, December 2019.

Printed in Malaysia.


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Editorial Board

Editors:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Astuty Amrin

Assoc. Prof. Dr Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Siti Sophiayati Yuhaniz

Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Saiful Amri Mazlan

Assoc. Prof. Ts. Dr. Mohd Khairi Abu Husain

Dr. Roslina Mohammad

Associate Editors:

Dr. Faizir Ramlie

Dr. Haliyana Khalid

Dr. Mohamad Syazli Fathi

Dr. Mohamed Sukri Mat Ali

Dr. Noor Hamizah Hussain

Dr. Noorlizawati Abd Rahim

Dr. Nurhasmiza Abu Hasan Sazalli

Dr. Pritheega Magalingam

Dr. Rasimah Che Mohd Yusoff

Dr. Rahimah Muhamad


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About iPDOCs’19

In bridging the gap between academia and industry, UTM School of Graduate Studies (SPS)

and Post Graduate Student Society (PGSS) invite academics, practitioners and students to

share ideas and present findings from industry-driven research that contribute impactful

solutions to the industrial challenges and enhance the industrial performance. iPDOCs’19

aims to highlight the impacts of industry-driven research and professional doctorate in

developing professional practices, outcomes and achievements in the industrial workplaces.

The purpose of the conference is to share knowledge and experience in research as well as

to establish an academic network. Participants of iPDOCs’19 are professional doctorate

candidates from various faculties in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. This conference

encourages them to present and defend their work confidently and improve their research.

This could be a platform for the participants to write high-quality articles in the future. It is also

a venue to expose the participants to establish networking and generate discussions for

potential collaborations. This conference provides opportunities for participants to

communicate and learn from each other not only in terms of academic research but also

the culture.

Articles published in the proceedings can be used for references and will be beneficial to

future researchers. Some of the findings can also be beneficial to some organizations which

can apply the result and conclusions in improving their business operations.


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Contents

PREPARATION OF POROUS-CROSS LINKED ENZYME AGGREGATES USING SUCROSE AS POROUS

AGENT …………………………………………………..………………...…………….……………………. 1

Noor Namirah Nawawi, Boon Cheng Kai, Zanariah Hashim, Nardiah Rizwana Jaafar & Rosli Md Illias

SANITARY LANDFILL IS A SOLUTION IN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT OR A SILENT THREAT TO

ENVIRONMENT: MALAYSIAN SCENARIO ……………………...……………………….…………..…… 4

Imran Ahmad, Shreeshivadasan Chelliapan, Norhayati Abdullah & Mohd Danish Ahmad

A FUZZY RULE-BASED FAILURE MODE, EFFECT AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS (FMECA) FOR CONTROL

VALVE MAINTENANCE …………………………………………………………………….…………..…… 8

Faizal Abdullah & Mohd Khairi Abu Husain

OPTIMIZATION OF SOIL-NAILED WALL DESIGN USING SLOPE/W SOFTWARE ………………….......12

Mohd Sukry Mohamed, Fathiyah Hakim Sagitaningrum & Samira Albati Kamaruddin

MICROSTRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION BY COMPOSITIONAL MODIFICATION OF Ti-6Al-4V

ALLOY FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS ……………………………………………….…………….... 16

Astuty Amrin, Ayad Omran Abdalla, Meysam Toozandehjani & Noorlizawati Abdul Rahim

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR INTERNET OF EDUCATIONAL THINGS (IoET) ……….…….... 20

Salbiah Zainal, Rasimah Che Mohd Yusoff & Hafiza Abas

INVESTIGATION THE KEY FACTORS INFLUENCING THE MOBILE BANKING ADOPTION IN IRAQ …24

Nawar Makttoof, Haliyana Khalid & Ibrahim Abdullah

TOWARDS TRANSFORMING ZAKAT COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION ROLES TO ADOPT DIGITAL

WALLET IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FINANCING …………………..……..…… 35

Wan Nur Azira Wan Mohamed Salleh, Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid & Rohaida Basirudin

IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING BEHAVIOR ON PERCEIVED PERFORMANCE OF BIG 4 AND

NON BIG 4 AUDIT FIRMS IN PAKISTAN ……………………………………………...….…………..…… 39

Sabra Munir, Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid, Farrukh Jamil & Muhammad Aamir

EXPLORING THE CHANGING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ROLE IN THE CONTEXT OF

DIGITAL BANKING TRANSFORMATION ………………….……………………………………………... 43

Kartina Abdul Latif, Nik Hasnaa Nik Mahmood & Nor Raihana Mohd Ali


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EFFECT OF ABSENTEEISM RATE TOWARDS WORK PERFORMANCE AT TELECOMMUNICATION

OPERATION CENTRE IN MALAYSIA ………………….………………………………………………….. 47

Nooramirah Najwa Borhanuddin, Roslina Mohammad & Zuritah A.Kadir

DISTRIBUTED REPRESENTATION OF ENTITY MENTIONS WITHIN AND ACROSS MULTIPLE TEXT

DOCUMENTS …………………………...……………….………………………………………………….. 51

Aliakbar Keshtkaran, Siti Sophiayati Yuhaniz & Mohammad Reza Rostami

KEY WORD INDEX ……………...……………………………………………………...…….……………. 56


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PREPARATION OF POROUS-CROSS LINKED ENZYME AGGREGATES USING SUCROSE AS

POROUS AGENT

Noor Namirah Nawawi1, Boon Cheng Kai1, Zanariah Hashim1, Nardiah Rizwana Jaafar1, Rosli

Md Illias1,2

1School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi

Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia 2Institute of Bioproduct Development, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor,

Malaysia

Abstract: The use of maltogenic amylase (MA) for maltooligosaccharides (MOS) synthesis

offers various advantages. However, lack of enzyme stability and high solubility brings major

barriers for its industrial application. The exploitation of cross linked enzyme aggregates

(CLEAs) method for enzyme stabilization has been studied for many years. Though, the

compact structure of CLEAs leads to the substrate diffusion problem. Therefore, to create

porosity and improve substrate accessibility of CLEAs, preparation of porous-CLEAs of MA

(MA-p-CLEAs) was performed with the addition of sucrose as a porous agent. The MA solution

was mix with different concentration of sucrose and the MA-p-CLEAs was incubated at

different incubation time and temperature in order to remove sucrose. The MA-p-CLEAs

prepared at 5% (w/v) sucrose yielded a 1.06-fold increase in activity compared to MA-CLEAs.

In summary, the addition of sucrose for CLEAs preparation of MA improves the activity of

CLEAs by creates porosity for better substrate diffusion.

Keywords: Cross Linked Enzyme Aggregates; Maltogenic Amylase; Porous Agent; Sucrose;

Sucrose

1. Introduction

Maltogenic amylase (EC 3.2.1.133) (MA) is a biocatalyst that able to produce various

lengths of MOS through the process of hydrolysis of various substrates [1]. Nonetheless, the

use of the free enzyme for the synthesis of MOS is hampered due to the lack of its stability

and reusability in which will increase its production cost. Cross linked enzyme aggregates

(CLEAs) method offer various advantages such as involve simple procedures, enhance

storage and operational stability of the enzyme as well as provides good reusability for the

enzyme [2,3]. However, due to some undesired shortcoming of this method which is a

substrate diffusion problem, a further modification of CLEAs needs to be carried out by the

formation of porous-CLEAs (p-CLEAs) [4]. In this study, the development of p-CLEAs of

maltogenic amylase (MA-p-CLEAs) using sucrose as a porous agent was performed to solve

the problem of substrate diffusion limitation. The optimum preparation conditions for MA-p-

CLEAs preparation were investigated. Then, its activity was compared with non-porous CLEAs

of maltogenic amylase (MA-CLEAs).


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2. Materials and Methods

2.1 Preparation of MA-p-CLEAs and MA-CLEAs

In a 50ml falcon tube, MA solution with and without sucrose was added into ammonium

sulphate to generate MA-p-CLEAs and MA-CLEAs, respectively and was incubated at 4°C

under continuous shaking of 200rpm. Next, the cross linking operation was performed for 1.5

hours using chitosan. Then, the mixture was centrifuged and the supernatant was discarded.

The insoluble form of CLEAs were washed 3 times using 50mM potassium phosphate buffer

(pH 7) and were re-suspended with potassium phosphate buffer and stored at 4°C for further

use. As for MA-p-CLEAs, different amount of sucrase was added into MA-p-CLEAs solution.

The different incubation times and incubation temperatures were applied to remove sucrose

from MA-p-CLEAs. Lastly, the insoluble MA-p-CLEAs has washed again for 3 times using 50mM

potassium phosphate buffer (pH 7), re-suspended in the same buffer and stored at 4°C for

further use.

2.2 Enzyme activity

The enzyme activity of MA-CLEAs and MA-p-CLEAs were measured using dinitrosalicylic

acid (DNS) method [5] with beta-cyclodextrin (β-CD) as a substrate. The assay was

performed for 10 minutes at 40°C. The activity recovery of MA-CLEAs and MA-p-CLEAs was

calculated using Equation 1:

Activity recovery =

[Total activity of CLEAs (U) ̸ MA activity used for CLEAs preparation (U)] X 100 (1)

3. Results and Discussions

The first investigated factor when preparing MA-p-CLEAs is the concentration of sucrose.

It has been noted that the concentration of porous agent will affect the size of pores of p-

CLEAs. Wang [4] found that the activity of papain-p-CLEAs was increased with the addition

of a high concentration of starch (porous agent). However, as mentioned by another

investigator, an excessive amounts of porous agent will leads to the formation of bigger and

irregular pores structure which can cause rupture to the CLEAs structures and consequently

leads to enzyme leakage and affects the activity of CLEAs [6]. Other factors that need to be

considered during p-CLEAs preparation are the incubation time and temperature to remove

sucrose. In fact, these factors can also affect the activity of MA-p-CLEAs. Shorter incubation

time and low temperature can cause incomplete removal of sucrose and can prevent the

accessibility of the substrate to the active site of MA-p-CLEAs. In comparison, at longer

incubation time and higher temperature, the reduction of MA-p-CLEAs activity could be due

to denaturation for MA-p-CLEAs. It has been noted that exposure of the enzyme at a higher

temperature in a longer incubation period could cause changes in the conformation of the

enzyme and leads to enzyme denaturation [7]. Hence, this study suggested that incubation

for 15 minutes at 30°C is the best condition to remove most of the sucrose of MA-p-CLEAs to

form pores and yet least denaturation of MA-p-CLEAs. The optimized conditions for the

preparation of MA-p-CLEAs are presented in Table 1.

Then, the activity recovery of both MA-p-CLEAs and MA-CLEAs was compared. MA-

p-CLEAs exhibited a 1.06-fold increase of activity than MA-CLEAs. Therefore, in this study, the


3

enhancement of MA-p-CLEAs activity indicated that sucrose can be used as a porous agent

for the preparation of p-CLEAs. The addition of sucrose during CLEAs preparation and its

removal after the cross linking step leaving a pore structure on the CLEAs particles which

enhances substrate accessibility to the active site of the Mag1 and subsequently increases

the catalytic activity of CLEAs.

Table 1: Optimized conditions for preparation of MA-p-CLEAs

Factors Optimized conditions

Sucrose concentration 5% (w/v)

Incubation time 15 minutes

Incubation

temperature

30 minutes

4. Conclusion

The porous-cross linked enzyme aggregates of maltogenic amylase (MA-p-CLEAs) with

improved activity as compared to MA-CLEAs has been developed in this study. This

developed MA-p-CLEAs is a potential biocatalyst that can use for the production of MOS

which can be applied in various applications such as for prebiotics synthesis.

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS). Grant no:

R.J130000.7846.4F888, Reference no: FRGS/1/2016/STG05/UTM/02/2.

References

[1] N.H.A. Manas, S. Pachelles, N.M. Mahadi, R.M. Illias, The characterisation of an alkali-

stable maltogenic amylase from Bacillus lehensis G1 and improved malto-oligosaccharide

production by hydrolysis suppression, PloS one 9(9) (2014) e106481.

[2] R. Sheldon, R. Schoevaart, L. Van Langen, Cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs): A

novel and versatile method for enzyme immobilization (a review), Biocatalysis and

Biotransformation 23(3-4) (2005) 141-147.

[3] J.D. Cui, S.R. Jia, Optimization protocols and improved strategies of cross-linked enzyme

aggregates technology: current development and future challenges, Critical reviews in

biotechnology 35(1) (2015) 15-28.

[4] M. Wang, C. Jia, W. Qi, Q. Yu, X. Peng, R. Su, Z. He, Porous-CLEAs of papain: application

to enzymatic hydrolysis of macromolecules, Bioresource technology 102(3) (2011) 3541-3545.

[5] G.L. Miller, Use of dinitrosalicylic acid reagent for determination of reducing sugar,

Analytical chemistry 31(3) (1959) 426-428.

[6] J. Cui, S. Jia, L. Liang, Y. Zhao, Y. Feng, Mesoporous CLEAs-silica composite

microparticles with high activity and enhanced stability, Scientific reports 5 (2015) 14203.

[7] R. Vishwakarma, R. Banerjee, Process Optimization for Enhancement of Fermentable

Sugar from Cyperus sp. through Enzymatic Saccharification, Journal of Biofuels 10(1) (2019)

1-11.


4

SANITARY LANDFILL IS A SOLUTION IN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT OR A SILENT

THREAT TO ENVIRONMENT: MALAYSIAN SCENARIO

Imran Ahmad1, Shreeshivadasan Chelliapan2, Norhayati Abdullah1 and Mohd Danish

Ahmad3

1Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan

Sultan Yahya Petra, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Sultan

Yahya Petra, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 3Student at Department of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim

University, Aligarh (UP) India.

Abstract: In Malaysia, the population is increasing at a rapid rate reaching 32.6 million in 2019.

This has resulted in a tremendous amount of solid wastes being generated which was

estimated as about 38,200 tons per day (1.12 kg/cap/day), in 2018 enough to fill the Twin

Towers every seven days. 82.5% of which is disposed of in landfills. If not managed properly

landfills can cause detrimental effects to environment, humans and aquatic world. Most of

the landfills in Malaysia are lagging with adequate facilities. This paper encompasses the

sections of history of solid waste management in Malaysia from 1970 to present, followed by

some alarming and dreadful cases of pollution due to ill management of landfills and lastly

some of the substantial measures to combat with the acute problem of solid waste focussing

on the responsibilities of government, manufacturer and user. Whether it be creating

awareness among people and implementing laws, 3R strategy or thinking before throwing

all play vial role in solid waste management. Collective and consistent effort is essential to

achieve Malaysia’s targeted recycling rate of 22% by 2020 and hence achieving Malaysian

vision with greater advancement towards a zero-waste nation.

Keywords: Solid Waste; Landfill; Leachate; Pollution; Recycling

1. Introduction

The tremendous trend on the increasing of solid waste generation led to the potential

threat to the environment, society and economic losses as the dependence on the landfill

as the main disposal method which is particularly causing serious environmental problems

such as soil contamination, leachate, gas emission, and air pollution [1]. Proper solid waste

management present an opportunity not only to avoid the detrimental impacts associated

with waste, but it can recover resources, environment, economic, social benefits which

towards to the sustainable future. National development plans and solid waste

management plans in Malaysia are compiled (Figure 1) to provides a timeline of Malaysia’s

solid waste management from the late 1970s to the present.


5

Figure 1. Solid Waste Management Policies and Plans Transformation in Malaysia [2]

1.1. Landfills

Landfill is the most common MSW disposal method due to the simple disposal procedure,

low cost, and landscape-restoring effect. The primary objective of the landfill site design is to

provide effective control measures to prevent negative effects on surface water,

groundwater, soil and air. As a final dumping area for solid waste, the landfill is the most

efficient way to settle the collected waste.The classification of landfill sites in Malaysia with

their available facilities are summarised in table 1.In this section we will read about the

number of sanitary and non-sanitary landfills and their location.

Table 1 Classification of landfill sites in Malaysia [2]

Levels Available facilities

I Controlled dumping Minimum infrastructure (fencing and

perimeter drains)

II Sanitary landfill with

daily cover

Class I facilities (with gas removal system,

separate unloading and working area,

daily cover and enclosing bund (divider

constructed as the embankment of

different waste cells)

III Sanitary landfill with

leachate circulation

Class II facilities (with leachate

recirculation system allowing the

collection, recirculation and monitoring of

landfill leachate)

IV Sanitary landfill with

leachate treatment

Class III facilities (with leachate treatment

system)

2. Waste management acts and regulations in Malaysia (historical background)

Malaysia establishes the Action Plan for Beautiful and Clean (ABC Plan) country, a

management system for solid waste that includes every state of Malaysia. This plan brings

perks in enhancing Malaysia’s image as a beautiful and clean country. Moreover, this ABC

Plan is economically and environmentally friendly and should be easily accepted by the


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community [3]. Under the supervision of Tun Dato Seri Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad as the 4th

Prime Minister the Sixth Malaysian Plan was introduced in 1991.

He also structured Malaysia to come out with the Vision 2020, a vision that plans for the

nation by the year of 2020 to be a fully developed country. Respectively, the ABC Plan leads

to the recycling program first in the year 1993 and secondly in the year 2000. Started from

November 11, 2000, the National Recycling Day was proclaimed to be an annual event for

Malaysia. The recycling program encourages households to practice 3Rs habit, that comes

with the tagline “Think before you throw”. Later in this section it is discussed at length about

how privatisation came into existence and about the enforcement of different plans and

acts like NSP and Act 672 were formulated and enforced and the outcome of them.

3. Case studies at distinct locations directly or indirectly related to ill management of solid

waste disposal or landfills

3.1. Landfill pollutants leaching into sea [4]

Fish farmers near Penang’s Pulau Burung sanitary landfill are blaming the facility for

emitting pollution that harms their cage-bred fish. There are about 150 fish farms, forming one

of the largest clusters of floating fish farms in Malaysia, and they are located 2km from

Penang’s only sanitary landfill. The fish farms produce 20,000 tonnes of fish yearly, including

for export to Singapore and Hong Kong. Fishermen are blaming the landfill for recent fish

deaths in their nets and cages and are accusing the landfill which is managed by the

Seberang Prai Municipal Council of illegally discharging leachate into the sea. Blackish water

was found flowing into the sea, believed to be leachate from the landfill. Shortly after that

tonnes of fish floated belly up in their cages. The fishermen want the department of

environment (DoE) and the fisheries department to conduct an urgent investigation into the

effects of the Pulau Burung landfill, which is located 6km northwest of Nibong Tebal, on the

coastal waters. It was reported at least 1,700 to 1,800 tonnes of rubbish is dumped at the

landfill on daily basis and at the time of rainfall, the drains are not able to contain the

leachate and it leaks out to the sea. If the bund was built using concrete, it could have held

back the leachate. This section incorporates many more case studies based on leachate

contamination, burning of solid waste at the landfill site, severe consequences related to

import of plastics, attitude and awareness of Malaysians to deal with solid waste, landfill

capacities and illegal dumping of solid waste in prime cities. We can understand about the

current Malaysian Scenario in solid waste management.

4.0 Substantial measures to be taken to control solid waste ill effects

4.1 Solid Waste Minimization through Recycling

Recycling is one of the fundamental parts of the solid waste minimization plan which the

most desirable approach in reducing the amount of solid waste generation dumped in the

landfill [5]. However, to attain the recycling targets, the solid waste management essentially

requires an involvement from the local community as it largely depends on the household

awareness regarding the solid waste recycling issues rather than focused on the local

authority responsibility services [6]. This was followed by the role of government,

manufacturer and an individual in the recycling and overall solid waste management.


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5.0 Conclusion

This paper provides brief introduction about the Malaysian history of solid waste

management policy and plan strategies to highlight the transformation of its policy and plan

strategies since the late 1970s to the present, followed by some alarming incidents reported

in different Malaysian areas with their detrimental effects to the environment and the people.

Lastly, we have incorporated substantial measures to minimize the solid waste.

References

[1] Agamuthu, P and Fauziah, S, H. 2011. Challenges and Issues In Moving Towards

Sustainable Landfilling In A Transitory Country – Malaysia, Waste Management and Research,

29 (1), 13-19.

[2] Moh, Y.C., and Manaf, L. A. 2017. Solid Waste Management Transformation And Future

Challenges Of Source Separation And Recycling Practice in Malaysia, Resources,

Conservation and Recycling, 116, 1–14.

[3] Ministry of Housing and Local Government. 2006. The Study of National Waste Minimization

in Malaysia Final Report. In cooperation with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Retrieved from http://jpspn.kpkt.gov.my/

[4] Chern, L.T. 2019. Landfill pollutants leaching into sea, The Star Online, retrieved from

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/09/16/farmers-landfill-pollutants-leaching-

into-sea

[5] Dinie, M. and Don, M., M. 2013. Municipal Solid Waste Management in Malaysia: Current

Practices, Challenges and Prospect, Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 62:1, 95–101.

[6] Keramitsoglou, K., M and Tsagarakis, K., P. 2013. Public Participation In Designing A

Recycling Scheme Towards Maximum Public Acceptance. Resources, Conservation and

Recycling, 70, 55-67.

http://jpspn.kpkt.gov.my/

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/09/16/farmers-landfill-pollutants-leaching-into-sea

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/09/16/farmers-landfill-pollutants-leaching-into-sea


8

A FUZZY RULE-BASED FAILURE MODE, EFFECT AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS (FMECA) FOR

CONTROL VALVE MAINTENANCE

Faizal Abdullah and Mohd Khairi Abu Husain

Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100 Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: Control valves are one of critical equipment in oil and gas process plant. Control

valve is highly engineered equipment, designed to very specific process parameters to serve

as final control element in a process control loop. Failure of control valve might lead to

catastrophic impact. Proper risk assessment is vital to optimized maintenance. This paper

presents application of failure mode, effect and critical analysis (FMECA) for control valve

using quantitative fuzzy based risks assessment. The main objective is to quantify the

qualitative values of the risk level for each failure modes using pre-determined inference rules.

The traditional FMECA RPN analysis is by multiplying three parameters: severity, probability

and detectability irrespective of the degree of importance of each input which might

produce similar value of RPN even the importance of the risk is different. A new method

called Fuzzy rule-based was proposed to be used in this research for the control valve FMECA.

Fuzzy RPN is utilized in order to identify highly critical failure mode as the focus of

maintenance strategy. The result of Fuzzy-RPN criticality analysis is significantly different

compare to traditional RPN. This due to Fuzzy-RPN utilized pre-defined expert rules, hence,

the RPN number produced is considered more reliable.

Keywords: Risk Assessment; Failure Mode, Effect and Critical Analysis; Fuzzy Rule-Based;

Process Control Valve; Process Plant.

1. Introduction

Comprehensive and proactive maintenance is vital for control valve to prevent any risk

of a process plant. Risk analysis are one of the challenges of each maintenance activity.

There are number of methods available in industry standards and guidelines to analyze risk

in maintenance activities. Among these models, FMECA (Failure Mode Effect and Critical

Analysis) is one of the most common method used to analyze risk [1]. The traditional method

of FMECA determines the critical ranking of failure modes using the risk priority numbers

(RPNs), which is the product of evaluation criteria like the probability (P), severity (S) and

detection (D) of each failure mode. Traditional methods the FMECA have been considerably

criticized for a number of reasons. For example, it is not practical is some applications and

the result of RPN number is not represent the actual risk [2].

The aim of this paper is to applied fuzzy rule-based failure mode, effect and critical

analysis as method of risk quantification for control valve. The idea is to calculate risk level or

RPN values for each identified failure modes and to determine the criticality ranking.


9

2. Methodology

The overall step by step process of Fuzzy rule based FMECA process shown in Figure 3. First,

we define the input, which is the three parameters: Severity, Probability and Detectability.

The values of these three parameters are presented in the tables 2, 3 and 4. These tables

represent the crisp values of each parameter with the linguistic terms.

Figure 1. Fuzzy FMECA flow diagram

2.1 Fuzzy FMECA RPN Method

The probability, severity and detectability level determined by a set of crisp. The fuzzy sets

with failure probability ranking and the corresponding membership functions are shown in

Table 1, Table 2 and Table which is adapted from [1][3] and [4]. RPN is the result of the rating

of three parameters (Severity, Probability and Detectability). RPN gives direction to rank the

failure modes base on risk criticality.

Table 1. Probability Level

Probability Level

Rank 1 2-3 4-6 7-8 9-10

Linguist

ic Term

Very

Low

Low Modera

te

High Very High

Criteria Failure

is

Unlikel

y

Relatively

Few

Failures

Occasio

nal

Failures

Repea

ted

Failures

Failure is

almost

inevitable

Table 2. Severity Level

Severity Level

Rank 1 2-3 4-6 7-8 9-10

Linguistic Term Very

Low

Low Medi

um

High Very

High

Criteria (Impact on

Safety, Financial &

Environmental)

Minor Margin

al

Major Catastro

phic

Disastr

ous


10

Table 3. Detectability Level

Detectability Level

Rank 1-2 3-5 6-8 9-10

Linguistic Very High High Moderate Very Low

Criteria Very high

chance the

system will

detect a

potential

cause of

failure

High

chance the

system will

detect a

potential

cause of

failure

Moderate

chance the

system will

detect a

potential

cause of

failure

Very low

chance the

system will

detect a

potential

cause of

failure

Table 4. Risk Priority Number Level

Risk Priority Number

Rank 100 200-300 400-600 700-800 900 - 1000

Linguistic

Term

Very

Low

Low Medium High Very High

Criteria Minor

(Non-

Critical)

Acceptable

(Non-

Critical)

Undesirable

(Critical)

Unacceptable

(Critical)

Unacceptable

(Very Critical)

The RPN variable is determined using rules based on others previous research by [1], [5].

[6], and [7] as shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Fuzzy RPN Rules


3.1 Result

The risk level (criticality) or RPN is calculated based on the established inference rules in

Table 6, from the three parameters (Probability, Severity, Detection). Table 6 populated the

result with comparison to the traditional RPN.

3.2 Discussion

Based on the criticality analysis of the failure modes, risk priority number was calculated

and the output results from both the traditional RPN and the fuzzy RPN method are presented

in in Table 8. From the table, the risk level calculation of traditional RPN give the result based

on multiplying the probability, severity and detectability numbers whereas the fuzzy RPN

Very

LowLow Medium High

Very

High

Very

LowLow Medium High

Very

High

VL VL VL VL VL VL VL L L L M M

L VL VL VL L L L L L M M M

M VL L M M M M L M M H H

H L M M M H H M M H H H

VH L M M H H VH M H H H VH

Very

LowLow Medium High

Very

High

Very

LowLow Medium High

Very

High

VL VL VL L L L VL L L M M M

L L L M M M L L M M M M

M L M M M H M M M H H H

H M M H H H H M H H VH VH

VH M H H H H VH H H VH VH VH

Severity

Level

Detectibility = Moderate (No Sign)

Rule

Probability

Rule

Probability

Detectibility = Very High (Easily Detectable)

Rule

Probability

Detectibility = High (Little Sign)

Severity

Level

Severity

Level

Detectibility = Very Low (Impossible to Detect)

Rule

Probability

Severity

Level


11

method gives values that are determined in by the inferences rules that was defined. From

the result, the significant risk level different produced by both methods.

Table 6. Fuzzy RPN result compare to traditional RPN

Failure

Mode

P S D Conventional

RPN Number

(PxSxD)

Criticality FRPN Criticality

FM1 7 4 8 224 Low 850 High

FM2 6 3 3 54 Very Low 650 Medium

FM3 1 5 5 25 Very Low 330 Low

FM4 8 8 4 256 Low 820 High

FM5 3 8 4 96 Very Low 620 Medium

FM6 2 10 9 180 Low 820 High

4. Conclusion

The obtained results confirm its applicability of the fuzzy RPN where the result of the

criticality is significantly different with the traditional RPN. This is due to the fuzzy RPN model

incorporates linguistic variables as input values and returns a result that was predetermined

in inference rules. The result of the fuzzy RPN shows better criticality risk level compared to

traditional RPN.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my committed supervisor, Dr Mohd Khairi Abu Husain for encouraging

me to start writing my research, for his guidance, advice and motivation.

References

[1] Liu, H.-C., Liu, L., & Liu, N. (2013). Risk evaluation approaches in failure mode and effects

analysis: A literature review. Expert systems with applications, 40(2), 828-838.

[2] Gupta, G., & Mishra, R. (2017). A failure mode effect and criticality analysis of

conventional milling machine using fuzzy logic: Case study of RCM. Quality and

reliability engineering international, 33(2), 347-356.

[3] Bowles, J. B., & Peláez, C. E. (1995). Fuzzy logic prioritization of failures in a system failure

mode, effects and criticality analysis. Reliability engineering & system safety, 50(2), 203-

213.

[4] IEC60812. (2006). IEC 60812: Analysis techniques for system reliability-Procedure for

failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). Geneva, Switzerland: International

Electrotechnical Commission, 1-93.

[5] Gallab, M., Bouloiz, H., Alaoui, Y. L., & Tkiouat, M. (2019). Risk Assessment of Maintenance

activities using Fuzzy Logic. Procedia Computer Science, 148, 226-235.

[6] Balaraju, J., Raj, M. G., & Murthy, C. S. (2019). Fuzzy-FMEA Risk Evaluation Approach for

LHD Machine-A Case Study. Journal of Sustainable Mining.

[7] Jaderi, F., Ibrahim, Z. Z., & Zahiri, M. R. (2019). Criticality analysis of petrochemical assets

using risk-based maintenance and the fuzzy inference system. Process Safety and

Environmental Protection, 121, 312-325.


12

OPTIMIZATION OF SOIL-NAILED WALL DESIGN USING SLOPE/W SOFTWARE

Mohd Sukry Mohamed, Fathiyah Hakim Sagitaningrum and Samira Albati Kamaruddin

Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100 UTM

Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: Optimization of soil-nailed wall design can be done with adjustment on parameters

and the construction elements during the design analysis. As there are many criteria in soil

nailing design that could be optimized, this paper focused on three main parameters: length,

inclination, and spacing of the soil nail. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the three

parameters optimization reanalyses and their cost difference from the original design. The

data were collected from a project in Selangor area and were reanalysed using the

Morgenstern-Price Method analysis from a Limit Equilibrium software (SLOPE/W). The

optimization re-analysis was evaluated with the change of the Factor of Safety (FOS) value

for all cases. Results showed that reducing the soil nail length will reduce the FOS, reducing

the soil nail inclination will increase the FOS, and reducing the soil nail spacing will increase

the FOS. It was also known that the cost reduces from 18% to 53% in the reanalysis which

showed that optimization design should be considered in all consultant firms and can be

used by the clients as verification for future soil-nailed wall design.

Keywords: Cost-Effective Design; Limit Equilibrium Method; Optimization; Soil-nailed Wall;

SLOPE/W.

1. Introduction

There are at least three parameters of soil nailing that would affect the slope stability

design and Factor of Safety (FOS). The parameters taken into consideration are soil nail

inclination, spacing, and length. This finding was supported by Rawat (2018) who observed

that increasing the inclination angle of soil nailing would reduce the FOS. Another study by

Gunawan et al (2017) stated that the FOS of a slope would increase with the increase of the

length of nails in a soil nailing system. Lastly, research by A. Mohamed (2010) stated that the

increase in the ratio of nail length with wall height would eventually increase the FOS. He also

found that nail inclination had a lesser effect on the FOS, whereas the decrease of nail

spacing would eventually increase the FOS. In this study, a project in the Selangor area

constructed a soil-nailed wall system, which was then known that it doesn’t have an

optimized design that led to an ineffective construction cost. From the three parameters

stated earlier, this study will then evaluate the three parameters with optimization reanalyses

and their cost difference from the original design. This optimized design could then be a

benchmark for clients in order to verify future soil-nailed wall designs.

2. Methodology

In order to evaluate the effect of soil nail inclination, spacing, and length for soil-nailed

wall optimized design, a reanalysis was done with various cases from the original design. The

reanalyses were done with evaluating the FOS of both the initial and optimized design slope

using a Limit Equilibrium Method (LEM) software, SLOPE/W from Geostudio 2012 with the

general method of slices developed, Morgenstern-Price Method (M-P). The analyses were


13

done according to the JKR guidelines and were assured to not exceed the FOS limits. The

parameters of nails length, nails spacing and nails inclination were modified for each case,

resulting from a trial and error for each case variable until the FOS was found to be near the

limit but not yet exceeded. Once the FOS for the five cases were determined. Cost estimation

for each of the cases was calculated in order to know the cost-effectiveness of each case

compared to the initial design cost. The cost estimation for each case was done with a simple

Microsoft Excel tabulation with the Bill of Quantity (BOQ) of the project modelled as the main

data.

3. Reanalyses and Factor of Safety Results

3.1 Slope Stability Analyses

The modelled design example for one of the cases that include the elevation of the

berms, nail inclination, and nail length of the slope before reanalyses can be seen in Figure

2. From all the cases, it was known at the end that the initial FOS was higher compared to

the results from the reanalyses and adjustments. The FOS for all cases before reanalyses were

known to be 1.997, 1.952, 1.813 1.648 and 1.585 whereas, after the reanalyses, the FOS were

known to be 1.501, 1.512, 1.523, 1.505 and 1.554.

Figure 1. Elevation soil nailing design and FOS 1.523 for Case 3

Factor of Safety vs. Lambda (Case 3)

Facto

r of

Safe

ty

Lambda

1.38

1.4

1.42

1.44

1.46

1.48

1.5

1.52

1.54

-0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6


14

3.2 Optimized Parameters and Rate

From all the cases, the selected nail inclination ranges from 100 to 250, nail spacing from

1.0 to 1.8 meters (m) and nail length from 3 to 15 m. Referring to Table 1, the behaviour of

each case differs according to the change of the three selected parameters: soil nail

inclination, the spacing between soil nails, and length of the nail.

Table 1. Parameters and nails rate for all cases Case

No.

Reanalyses Nail

inclination

(degrees)

Nail

Spacing

(m)

Tensile

Capacity

(KN)

Bond

Diameter

(m)

Nail

Length

(m)

Factor

of

Safety

Nails Rate

(RM)

1 Before 15 1.5 322 0.125 6 & 9 1.997 410, 495

After 20 2.0 322 0.125 3, 6 & 9 1.501 205, 410, 495

2 Before 25 1.0 322 0.125 12 1.952 710

After 20 1.5 322 0.125 6 & 12 1.512 410, 710

3 Before 15 1.0 196 0.125 12 1.813 710

After 20 1.5 196 0.125 9 1.523 495

4 Before 10 1.5 322 0.125 12 & 15 1.684 710, 910

After 20 1.2 322 0.125 9 1.505 495

5 Before 10 1.5 & 1.0 322 0.125 12 & 9 1.585 495, 710

After 15 1.8 322 0.125 12 1.554 710

3.3 Cost Reduction

From the reanalyses in the previous section, it can be seen that all of the cases showed

a similar behaviour where the reduced FOS would eventually reduce the cost. Hence, it

could be concluded that optimizing the soil-nailed wall design would result in a more cost-

effective design.

Figure 2. Cost reduction before and after reanalyses

According to Table 2 that described the change of FOS from the optimization of

design, the value of the optimized design was found to be lower than the initial FOS.

RM285,458

RM738,400

RM1,363,200

RM714,960

RM601,313

RM189,533

RM389,760

RM635,580

RM423,720RM491,636

RM0

RM200,000

RM400,000

RM600,000

RM800,000

RM1,000,000

RM1,200,000

RM1,400,000

RM1,600,000

1 2 3 4 5

Cost

Case Number

Before reanalysis After reanalysis


15

Table 2. Cost-saving and percentage saving

4. Conclusion

The optimum factors considered for the three design variables: the length of a soil nailing,

the spacing of soil nailing, and the inclination of the nail. These three design variables were

adjusted through a method of trial and error until the optimized design within the permissible

limits were achieved. The length of soil nailing was the largest affecting factor in optimizing

the design, whereas the inclination of the soil nailing was the least affecting factor. It can be

concluded that reducing the length of soil nailing would reduce the FOS, reducing the nail

inclination would increase the FOS, and reducing the spacing between soil nailing would

increase the FOS.

Acknowledgement

The first author is an Engineering Doctorate student who is partially supported by the Ministry

of Higher Education (Malaysia). The second author is a PhD student who is partially supported

by the International Doctoral Fellowship from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

References

[1] A.Mohamed (2010). Design Charts for Soil Nailing. Master of Science in Civil Engineering,

Shobra Benha University, Cairo Dewedree, S., & Jusoh, S. N. (2019). Slope stability

analysis under different soil nailing parameters using the SLOPE/W software. Journal of

Physics: Conference Series, 1174(1). doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1174/1/012008.

[2] Geoguide 7 (2008), Guide to Soil Nail Design and Construction, Geotechnical of

Engineering Office the Government of Hong Kong vol. 7, pp. 81.

[3] GEO-SLOPE International Ltd (2012). Stability Modelling with SLOPE/W. An Engineering

Methodology, 6th Ave SW Calgary, Alberta, Canada Ghareh, S. (2015). Parametric

assessment of soil-nailing retaining structures in cohesive and cohesionless soils.

Measurement, 73, 341-351. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2015.05.043.

[4] Gunawan, I., Surjandari, N. S., & Purwana, Y. M. (2017). The study on length and

diameter ratio of nail as a preliminary design for slope stabilization. Journal of Physics:

Conference Series, 909(1). doi:10.1088/1742-6596/909/1/012073.

[5] Rawat, P., & Chatterjee, K. (2018). Seismic Stability Analysis of Soil Slopes Using Soil Nails.

Geotechnical Special Publication, 2018-June (GSP 293), 79 - 87.

doi:10.1061/9780784481486.009.

Before Reanalyses After Reanalyses

Case

No.

Factor of

Safety

Cost (RM) Factor of

Safety

Cost (RM) Cost Saving

(RM)

Percentage

saving (%) 1 1.997 RM285,458.33 1.501 RM189,532.50 RM95,925.83 33.60

2 1.952 RM738,400.00 1.512 RM389,760.00 RM348,640.00 47.22

3 1.813 RM1,363,200.00 1.523 RM635,580.00 RM727,620.00 53.38

4 1.684 RM714,960.00 1.505 RM423,720.00 RM291,240.00 40.74

5 1.585 RM601,313.33 1.554 RM491,635.56 RM109,677.78 18.24


16

MICROSTRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION BY COMPOSITIONAL MODIFICATION OF Ti-

6Al-4V ALLOY FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS

Astuty Amrin1, Ayad Omran Abdalla2, Meysam Toozandehjani1 and Noorlizawati Abdul

Rahim1

1Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Kuala Lumpur,

54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2College of Mechanical Engineering Technology, Alrahba Street, Alfwayhat, Benghazi,

Libya

Abstract: Ti-6Al-4V alloy has been extensively used in aircraft for lightweight structural

applications including wings and fuselage. Similar to other Ti alloys, however, its major

drawback is higher cost leading to limitation in its application. In this case, Iron (Fe) has been

introduced to Ti-alloys as a replacement of expensive element like vanadium (V) and

molybdenum (Mo) in order to lower cost. In this work, a new Ti-6Al-Fe alloy was developed

through major composition modifications of Ti–6Al–4V alloy. The vanadium element in Ti–6Al–

4V alloy was replaced by 1 to 3 wt.% Fe. It was found that Fe can be effectively act as a β-

stabilizing element. Ti-6Al-Fe system bring a strong advantage over conventional Ti-6Al-4V

alloy in many aerospace applications owing to outstanding mechanical and corrosion

properties.

Keywords: Ti-6Al-4V Alloy; Iron (Fe); Microstructure; Mechanical Response, Aerospace

1. Introduction

Dual phase (α+β) Ti-6Al-4V alloy is definitely one of the most extensively used Ti alloys in

aircraft, where it has been commonly utilised as a structural material, airframes and engine

components [1-3]. The mechanical response of Ti-6Al-4V alloy can be easily modified and

coherently affected by adding alloying elements or altering its composition. However, this

alloy is expensive because of the expensive alloying elements such as vanadium (V). To lower

material cost and improve properties, researchers have introduced the cheaper alloying

elements as an alternative of more expensive elements. Addition of alloying elements has

direct influence on microstructures that would positively reflect on mechanical response of

these alloys leading to significant improvements [4-7]. Of the interest of authors, Fe can be

an attractive alloying element in (α+β) Ti-6Al-4V alloy as a potential β-stabilizers. It can be as

a substitution to expensive β-stabilizing V element in order to lower alloy cost and

simultaneously improve mechanical response [5-7]. Therefore, a new Ti-6Al-xFe alloy (x=1, 2,

and 3 wt.%) was developed in this study by compositional modification of of Ti-6Al-V alloy. In

this regards, V as an expensive alloying element was replaced by Fe as a cost-effective β-

stabilizing alloying element in Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Then, the effect of addition of Fe on the

microstructures, mechanical and corrosion response of developed Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloy was

studied.


Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys containing up to 3 weight percentage (wt.%) were supplied from TIMET

Co. Alloys were initially manufactured by melting in a vacuum arc melting technique using


17

tungsten electrode. The as-received alloys were formed into bar shaped samples. Then,

samples were heated above β-transus temperature at 1038 °C. Finally, samples underwent

rolling process to obtain 35% thickness reduction where final dimensions of 160× 60 × 6 mm

was obtained.

An X–ray Diffractometer (XRD), BRUKER-D8 equipped with a 1-D (LYNXEYE) fast detector

was used to record the XRD pattern of the investigated alloys. The morphological and

microstructural features of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe were observed using optical microscope (NIKON

Eclipse). The micro-hardness of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys were measured using a digital Micro-

Vickers hardness tester (WOLPERT–Model: 401MVD). Three different measurements was

carried out at a load of 1 kgf and a dwell time of 10 seconds on the randomly selected

positions of each specimen and the average value was reported. Tensile tests were carried

out using a 50 KN universal tensile testing machine (SHIMADZU). Electrochemical test

measurements were carried out using standard three-electrode system at room using

AutoLab PGSTAT128N potentiostat supported with Nova 1.11 software programme. Silver

chloride electrode (Ag/AgCl) was used as reference electrode while platinum (Pt) wire was

the counter electrode. A 3.5% NaCl solution was prepared as an electrolyte solution.


Figure 1 illustrates the microstructure of Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-1Fe alloys. Optical micrographs

reveals the fully equiaxed microstructure of Ti-6Al-4V alloy which is composed of a uniform

structure of α grains and grain boundaries of β (Figue 1a). The microstructures of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe

alloys consist of as a basket weave-like structure which is well known as a typical fully lamellar

microstructure as also reported earlier [7]. For instance, the microstructure of Ti-6Al-1Fe alloy

is illustrated in Figure 1b. By increasing Fe content, the lamellar colony size and the α-lamella

width decreases from 780 µm to 457 µm and from 2.65 µm to less than 1 µm, respectively.

Figure 1. The optical micrograph of a) Ti-6Al-4V and b) Ti-6Al-1Fe alloys

Figure 2 shows XRD pattern of Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys. The XRD patterns reveal

that Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys are clearly dual phases that consist of coexistent α and β-phases.


18

Figure 2. XRD patterns of Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys.

The percentages of α and β phases in Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys are listed in Table 1. Obviously,

the percentage of β-phase increases by increasing Fe content. Fe as a β-phase stabilizing

alloying element effectively reduces the β-transus temperature, then the formation of β-

phase is consequently enhanced [8]. In addition, TiFe intermetallic compounds such as

Ilmenite (FeTiO3) and Rutile (TiO2) did not detected as existing phases in Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys

indicating that Fe is a strong β-stabilizer that can suppress TiFe formation.

Table 1. The percentage of α and β phases in Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys.

Specimen Phase Percentage (%) Increment percentage

of β-Phase (%) α β

Ti-6Al-4V 95.2 4.8 0

Ti-6Al-1Fe 91.9 8.1 68.8

Ti-6Al-2Fe 89.6 10.4 116.67

Ti-6Al-3Fe 86.9 13.1 172.9

The physical and mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys is tabulated in Table 2. The

density values in Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys increase as Fe content increases. It can be due to higher

density of Fe element compared to other composing element such as Ti, Al, and V. Ti-6Al-(1-

3)Fe alloys have higher micro-hardness (HV) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) but lower

ductility (%) than Ti-6Al-4V alloy. In addition, HV, UTS and elongation % values increase by

increasing Fe content.

Table 2. The physical, mechanical and corrosion properties of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys.

Specimen Density

(g/cm3) HV

UTS

(MPa)

Elongation

(%)

Corrosion Rate

(mm/year) * 10-5

Ti-6Al-4V 4.374 302 833 12.5 2.10

Ti-6Al-1Fe 4.338 327 897 11.3 1.77

Ti-6Al-2Fe 4.369 338 974 10.4 2.09

Ti-6Al-3Fe 4.386 370 1069 8.1 2.29

The higher mechanical response of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys is attributed to the fine lamellar

microstructure. Ti-6Al-1Fe shows excellent corrosion resistance of 1.77E-5 mm/year, the lowest


19

corrosion rate in 3.5% NaCl solution, while higher corrosion rate of 2.1E-5 mm/y was recorded

by its counterpart, Ti-6Al-4V alloy.

4. Conclusion

The compositional modifications of Ti-6Al-4V alloy through replacement of V element by

Fe was carried out and resulted in the improvement of density, strength, hardness as well as

corrosion resistance of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys compared to Ti-6A-4V alloy. These enhancement

in the mechanical and corrosion resistance of Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys is attributed to the

developed bi-modal α+β microstructure which contain a very fine lamellar α+β

microstructure wherein size of lamellar colonies and the lamellae width gradually decrease

by increasing Fe content.

Acknowledgement

Authors would like to acknowledge Assoc. Prof. Dr. Khairur Rijal in providing the furnace for

the experimental work and all UPMU technicians for their technical support.

References

[1] Lütjering, G. and Williams, J. C. 2007. Titanium, Springer.

[2] Whittaker, M. 2015. Titanium Alloys. Metals, 5, 1437-1439.

[3] Wang, S. Q., Liu, J. H. and Chen, D. L. 2013. Strain-controlled fatigue properties of

dissimilar welded joints between Ti-6Al-4V and Ti17 alloys. Materials and Design, 49, 716-

727.

[4] Liang, Z., Miao, J., Brown, T., Sachdev, A. K., Williams, J. C. and Luo, A. A. 2018. Low-cost

and high-strength Ti-Al-Fe-based cast titanium alloy for structural applications. Scripta

Materialia, 157, 124–128.

[5] Kadiri, H., Wang, L., Ozkan Gulsoy, H., Suri, P., Park, S., Hammi, Y. and German. R, 2009.

Development of a Ti-based alloy: design and experiment. The Journal of the Minerals,

Metals and Materials Society (JOM), 61, 60-66.

[6] Hideki, F. and Kazuhiro, T. 2002. Development of high performance Ti-Fe-Al alloy series.

Nippon Steel Technical Report, 113-117.

[7] Abdalla, A. O., Amrin, A., Muhammad, S. and Hanim M. A. A. 2017. Microstructures and

hardness of newly designed Ti-6Al-(1-3)Fe alloys. Applied Mechanics and Materials, 864,

142-146.

[8] Joshi, V. A. 2006. Titanium alloys: An atlas of structures and fracture features, Taylor and

Francis.


20

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR INTERNET OF EDUCATIONAL THINGS (IoET)

Salbiah Zainal, Rasimah Che Mohd Yusoff and Hafiza Abas

Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100 Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: The paper aims to identify a conceptual framework for Internet of Educational

Things (IoET) system design that facilitates students’ reflective thinking. Literature review has

been used to identify the components of the conceptual framework. This IoET conceptual

framework consists of five essential elements: theoretical model, instructional design model,

development life cycle, implementation and evaluation. The Jigsaw-Based Cooperative

Learning model and Interaction theory, and Mezirow reflective thinking model has been

used as the theoretical foundation to develop the instructional design. For the prototype

development life cycle, ADDIE model will be used. Prototype of IoET will be evaluated using

usability evaluation and enhancement on students’ reflective thinking. With implementation

of IoET system in the teaching and learning of process making will then leads to a deeper

understanding in learning.

Keywords: Internet of Educational Things, Theoretical Model, Reflective Thinking, Students’,

Conceptual Framework.

1. Introduction

The fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) has changed the landscape of educational

innovation. Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the domains enabling technology in IR 4.0.

Gartner, 2016 estimated that 5.5 million new “things” are connected to networks and nearly

21 billion devices will be connected with Internet of Things (IoT) by 2020. IoT is swiftly

expanding beyond devices for schools. The key advantages of IoT technology in such cases

are to make the learning process more “real, local and fun”, allowing students to understand

more complex concepts by making use of relevant information obtained from interaction

with physical objects in the real world.

Internet of Education Things (IoET) can be defined as emerging technology integrated

with smart object and is felt many expect of education such as course presentations, sharing

knowledge and ideas, personalized content and learning activities (Bagheri et al., 2016). IoET

are flexible, allow hyper-connectivity between physical and virtual objects, adaptable,

accessible and scalable which becomes properties of the IoT (Abbasy et al., 2017). There

are many potential of IoET based learning platform to be implemented such as smart

classroom (Veeramanickam et al, 2016), smart attendance system (Chan, 2017), smart

monitoring student (Megalan, 2018; Pushpa, 2014). The characteristic of 21st century learners

indicates that students should be innovators, creators, flexible and critical thinkers. Student-

centred learning is a best practice in provoke to 21st-century learning experiences. For

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subject, IoET can be used to

enhance teaching and learning especially for digital natives students. 21st century learning

should able to provoke critical thinking, communicating and collaborating using technology

(Higgins, 2014). However there are lack of the design of IoT for teaching and meaning to

provoke reflective thinking as part of critical thinking. This study aims to identify a conceptual

framework for IoET system design that facilitate students’ reflective thinking


21

2. Related Works

A conceptual framework for IoET learning platform basically consists of theoretical model,

system development life cycle and evaluation of the prototype. Jigsaw-based cooperative

learning is proven can increased students’ performance (Nur Hafizah, 2016). The jigsaw

method also proved accommodating in enhancing students’ understanding. Students’ self-

esteem, self-confidence, and enjoyment of the learning experience can be observed using

this method in classroom (LeyvaMoralet al., 2016). Education process is referring to

transformative learning and reflection committed to professional performance (Mezirow,

1978). In education, Mezirow model can be used for creating understanding and reflective

thinking among students. The six levels of Mezirow reflection are (1) Reflection, (2) Emotional

reflection, (3) Evaluative reflection (4) Judgmental reflection, (5) Conceptual reflection and

(6) Psychic reflection. For the development of IoET prototype, iterative ADDIE model

instructional design life cycle can be adopted. The ADDIE model is a systematic instructional

design model consisting of five phases: (1) Analysis, (2) Design, (3) Development, (4)

Implementation, and (5) Evaluation (Muruganantham, 2015). The prototype of IoET can be

evaluated from system usability and students’ reflection aspects. Usability is acceptability to

the interface and content of a system. The usability will be evaluated from three

characteristic such as user, task and context of use (Harrison et. al., 2013; Nielsen, 1993). It is

the criteria of ‘user’s satisfaction’ towards IoET content based such as easy to learn, efficient

to use, easy to remember, few errors and subjectively pleasing (Brinck et al., 2002; Nielson,

1993). Students reflective thinking will be evaluate using four dimensions (Mezirow, 1978):

Habitual action at the beginning, middle and end of learning session; students understanding

by investigating the participants’ reflection the object such as self-reflection, artifact and

circumstance; level of reflection towards students’ thought-action; and level of critical

reflection towards students’ ex post facto reflection for content and process happened.

2. Methods

Reviews of the fundamental theories or models related to reflective thinking are

identified from related journals and articles.


Implementation of IoET will transform traditional classrooms into new styles of learning

and enhance level of student’s reflective thinking. This conceptual framework describes five

essential elements such as theoretical model, design, development, implementation, and

evaluation on IoET. Figure 1 shows the proposed conceptual framework for IoET content to

support reflective thinking


22

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework for IoET Content to support Reflective Thinking

4. Conclusion

This study has conducted literature review to identify IoET conceptual framework which

forms the groundwork of the study. This IoET platform conceptual framework consists of five

essential elements: theoretical model, instructional design model, development life cycle,

implementation and evaluation. This conceptual framework has an impact on the design of

IoET model that facilitates reflective thinking.

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by GUP research grant (No: Q.K130000.2538.15H48) from Universiti

Teknologi Malaysia.

References

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Jossey-Bass


24

INVESTIGATION THE KEY FACTORS INFLUENCING THE MOBILE BANKING ADOPTION IN

IRAQ

Nawar Makttoof1, Haliyana Khalid2 and Ibrahim Abdullah3

1Department of Business Administration, International Business School, UTM, Malaysia

1Department of Business Administration, University of Sumer, Alrifaee, Iraq. 2Department of Business Administration, International Business School, UTM, Malaysia

3Al-Hikma University College, Baghdad, Iraq

Abstract: Over the past one decade, banking business has transformed drastically. The fast

development of technology has affected the industry of banking around the globe. The

technology impact information in banking sector and one of the greatest technologies in

this sector is the mobile banking. In Iraq, there are some antecedents facing the banks

regarding the utilization of mobile banking systems by users. A model was proposed in this

paper using a quantitative research design to verify and develop the relationship between

the factors proposed. The main factors that could affect the mobile banking systems of Iraqi

banks have been identified in three categories: technological organizational and

environmental. In order to ensure that the design of the questionnaire follows up with the two

stages of verification, the first phase of the validation of the questionnaire is checked by a

panel of experts in the field of mobile banking before proceeding to the second phase.

Secondly, the Cronbach alpha reliability of the factors is checked in a pilot study using the

SPSS software. All of the factors were shown to be reliable from the results as there was a gain

of 0.7 and above in the test.

Keywords: Mobile Banking Adoption, Iraqi Banks, Pilot Study, Cronbach's Alpha

1. Introduction

Information and communication technology have significantly revolutionized our daily life.

It has drastically influenced the business sector even more. Business organizations these days

are dependent on electronic platform for their success. Financial organizations are

implementing technological solutions for providing better and quality product and services

to their clients. to compete in the competitive environment, Banks are using technological

platforms. To provide better product and service to enhance user satisfaction and reducing

their operational cost. As mobile communication is one of the major types of technological

platform due to its availability and convenience using, more and more business organizations

are utilizing this platform to run their daily operations. Business organizations including banking

sectors are utilizing this new innovation of mobile-based platform to extend their service and

product to the clients. The advancement of mobile devices and technologies has made

banking users perform their banking services at every place and at any time. Lately, many

banks of the world have offered mobile access to different financial information (1).

Mobile banking (M-banking) is expected to produce benefits for users. Mobile Banking is

defined as the “type of execution of financial services which the customer uses mobile

communication techniques in conjunction with mobile devices” (2). Furthermore, mobile

banking is becoming the delivery of self-service channel that helps banks to present

information and also offer solutions to their own clients with more convenience via the

internet services technology (3). With mobile banking, the focus is no longer on the mangers,


25

but both the users and the employees in particular, who benefit from the mobile banking of

the various knowledge resources provided by existing technology. M-banking will certainly

come to be an essential service to the bank along with the spectacular raise in the quantity

of smartphone utilization in Iraq (4). To make sure the success of M-banking, banks have to

supply a strong m-banking structure and also to connect properly the advantage of m-

banking to persuade clients to utilize the system of m-banking as a second option through

internet banking and conventional banking (5). In developing nations, like Iraq, m-banking

has been accepted by the banking business. However, the adoption rate is still low in Iraq. It

is a simple fact that m-banking is even now in its childhood and fairly alien to Iraqis. There is

certainly a requirement, hence, to realize the level of acceptance of m-banking by clients

and to study the aspects influencing intentions to utilize it for financial transactions. The use

of m-banking by users within banks in Iraq needs significant financial investment decision and

studying efforts, but additionally introduces major change to just about every element of

banking work (6). Furthermore, perceptions toward the usage of mobile banking

applications may differ between banking professional’s groups, contributing to the

complexness of using this new innovation in a pluralist banking system (7). Mobile banking

services and tools’ use has become one of the fundamental criteria for creating the things

needed for modern society. Great attention is paid to, including key factors for the

development of an appropriate mobile banking model in different developing countries,

which in turn consists of understanding alongside the proficiency of the use of mobile and

important experiments in order to adopt them as a core component in the core banks, to

bank accounts deposit and withdrawal. As the usage of mobile banking usage levels is

unclear, this poses a further problem in assessing current state of the mobile banking system

in Iraqi banks. Therefore, the aim of this study is to create an adoption model suitable for

mobile banking, including possible interrelations between these factors. To achieve this aim,

a pilot study is conducted to improve the form and questionnaire reliability. Notwithstanding,

given there are many expected benefits from the mobile banking use, it is therefore

important that the system needs to be successfully implemented, is widely accepted, and

adopted by banks and users.

2. Literature Review

Basically, the Technology-organization-environment (TOE) is a framework that (8) developed,

and is also selected and used as this study’s framework. The study conducted by (9) shows

that constant support for the ability of TOE towards the provision of an all-inclusive

perspective regarding innovation adoption, and at the same time easing the flexibility of

identify and classifying distinct factors that can probably arise in specific situations are

essential (10). Moreover, the main reason for selecting this framework is that this approach

has the potential to address issues of this study. On the subject of appropriate framework

selection advocates a framework that has been adapted and adopted and requires further

development and fine-tuning in its application for contextual matching. In addition,

institutional theory, diffusion of innovation theory, TOE adoption framework, and previous

studies are employed to investigate the factors that influence mobile banking adoption in

Iraq. These theories have been applied in electronic information sharing studies (11).

Institutional Theory considers an institution as a social construction with a resilience level that

is considered high Scott (2001). The theory of institution focuses its perspective on the factors

that has an effect in forcing a technology adoption at an inter-organizational level.

Institutional theory brings to surface the different forces that motivates incorporating art

technologies. Such forces can be produced by the appearance of new rivals, governmental

departments, clients or even industries. Organizational isomorphism, as described by (12),

represents the possible new systems and plans employment in different organization to a


26

level where they become closer to each other in terms of operations environment similarities.

The other factors were used from researches conducted far in the Middle Eastern nations like

Jordan and Kuwait. Each attribute is composed of lots of influencing factors. The current

study has some influencing factors like relative advantage, privacy and security, ease of use,

compatibility, Connectivity, top management support, IT capability, Technical Support,

social influence, policy and government support. In this study, about 11 hypotheses were

introduced. Every factor has its formulated hypothesis. Figure 1 presents the framework

considered in this study. Also, the factors capable of promoting the engagement to willingly

accept mobile banking were defined. The questionnaire items were assessed with the pilot

study and also to ascertain the suitable questions to be included into the survey. The

employees were given the questionnaires. The section that follows describes the

questionnaire design.

Figure 1: Framework to adopt mobile banking in Iraq


27

3. Material and Method

A descriptive, survey research design was chosen for the investigation of the major factors

associated with the technology, organization, environment, individual as well as mobile

banking use in the Iraqi banks. A questionnaire technique was used for data collection in

order to determine bank customer's views. The major reason for making the choice of the

questionnaire back is because of the feasibility in the simplification of the data analysis in a

more objective and ‘scientific’ manner as opposed to other types of studies. Additionally,

researchers are assisted towards the comparison of other studies as well as the probability of

being utilized for the measurement of change believed by positivists in the examination of

the present hypotheses (13).

4. Questionnaire Construction

The instrument tool was designed on the basis of closed-ended questions, whereby the

respondents provided accurate answers for each item or question. The entire items were

adapted from past studies that are based on each factor’s contents. Table 1 shows the

operation of items and factors. The Five likert scale (including the strongly disagree, disagree,

the not sure, agree, and the strongly agree) was used in this study to determine the level of

agreement among the respondents. Five likert scale is one of the widely used scale for

providing a clear view about one’s proposition in certain aspect. Before starting the

questionnaire, a brief description about the research study and its objectives along with a

confidentiality rules have been provided. The questionnaire was composed in English and

an Arabic translation was done, since this is Iraq’s official language.

5. Questionnaire Validation

The questionnaire validity assessed by taken some steps prior to the last distribution so as

to make sure that the entire questions or items are free of errors and correct. These are steps

that involve sending the questionnaire to seven experts in the field. The experts are instructors

in the Iraqi universities that have an experience using mobile banking systems. The

questionnaire evaluated for clarity, duplication, language, or contradiction. Before the

distribution, some recommendations and comments were accompanied by the application

of suitable modifications.

6. Pilot Study

The pilot study is a popular recommendation from many authors (14). Basically, the pilot

study is carried out for the testing of the research instrument. According to (15), all gathered

data need to be piloted in order to verify that all questions and even instructions are very

clear. As a matter of fact, this procedure allows the researchers to eliminate any type of

items unable to yield useful data. Therefore, the pilot study functions to make sure that the

chosen study format is appropriate prior proceeding to apply the major tool. Thus, the

questionnaire was distributed among users of mobile banks services in three private banks in

Iraq (International Development Bank, National Bank of Iraq and Bank of Baghdad) A total

of 36 responses has been received and this is considered appropriate for any pilot study as

suggested by (16), who declared that about 30 different representative participants from

the entire population of interest is considered a reasonable minimum recommendation for

the pilot study.


28

Table1: Operationalization of the factors and items

Factor Reference

Relative (21, 22 & 23)

Privacy and (24 & 19)

Ease of use (19 & 17 & 25 & 22)

Compatibility (22 & 26)

Connectivity (3)

Top (27)

IT capability (18 & 30)

Technical (28 & 18)

Social (18)

Policy (29)

Government (28)

MBA (22 & 26, 31)

7. Pilot Study Results

The popularly adopted reliability measurement test of any pilot study type of questionnaire,

as seen in various studies is the Cronbach’s Alpha test (17). As indicated by George & Mallery

(2003), the Cronbach’s Alpha test possesses some values between the range of 0 and 1; a

greater level of range indicates reliability value. 0.9 values and above are considered

excellent, while 0.8 values and above are considered good, then 0.7 values and above are

considered acceptable, then 0.6 values and above are considered questionable, and 0.6

values and below are considered poor. The pilot study provided some data, which were

analyzed with the use of the “Statistical Package for Social Sciences,” generally known as

(SPSS v.24) for the identification of each factor values in Cronbach’s Alpha. Based on the

pilot study, the test result showed that all the items are reliable since it resulted in a value of

about 0.7 and above of the Cronbach’s alpha reliability test.


29

Table 2: Cronbach’s alpha and number of items.

8. Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influencing factors affecting the mobile

banks service systems in the Iraqi banks. The motivation of this study was due to the dire need

of examining the challenges, requirements, and gaps encountering the complete mobile

bank use systems in many Iraqi banks. A questionnaire was designed based on previous

studies that examined the proposed factors. Meanwhile, a pilot study was carried out for the

analysis of each influencing factor as well as the testing of the reliability of the questionnaire.

This kind of studies was required to verify that all items are reliable and free of errors.

Meanwhile the pilot study considered the Cronbach’s Alpha test, which reveals that the

entire factors are composed of 0.7 values and above, which were considered acceptable.

Questionnaire was used in conducting the pilot study, which was provided to the user’s

mobile banks services in three private banks in Iraq. This study will be accompanied by a

research paper for the illustration of the results provided by the data analysis of the major

survey. The hypotheses have to be tested by future research while also validating the final

model.

9. Limitation of the Research

This study aims to examine the feasibility and acceptance level mobile banking adoption

framework in Iraq. However, a number of limitations should be considered. First, the unstable

political climate and strife in Iraq added challenges to the scope and limitations of this study.

Second, studies regarding mobile banking in Iraq are limited, with few studies conducted by

the central bank of Iraq. This situation caused some difficulties in designing the questionnaire.

Third, the number of respondents was 36 only. Finally, users have limited grasp and

Scale Name Cronbach’s Alpha No. of items

Relative Advantage 0.705 6

Privacy and Security 0.789 6

Ease of use 0.804 5

Compatibility 0.713 5

Connectivity 0.874 7

Top Management 0.827 5

IT capability 0.711 6

Technical Support 0.740 5

Social Influence 0.799 6

Policy 0.828 5

Government Support 0.831 5

MBA 0.721 8


30

knowledge of data warehouse because it is viewed and considered as a new tool in mobile

banking.

Appendix

Factors and Items

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge all the participants in this study for giving us a portion of their

time.

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International Journal of Arts and Sciences, 3(2), 294-306.

[6] Chaouali, W., Souiden, N., & Ladhari, R. (2017). Explaining adoption of mobile banking

with the theory of trying, general self-confidence, and cynicism. Journal of Retailing and

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[7] Govender, I., & Sihlali, W. (2014). A study of mobile banking adoption among university

students using an extended TAM. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(7), 45.

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[9] Yazdani, M. (2017). Developing A Model For Validation And Prediction Of Bank Customer

Credit Using Information Technology (Case Study Of Dey Bank). Journal of Fundamental and

Applied Sciences, 9(1S), 317-330.

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USA, 2003.

[11] DaMaggio, P., & Powell, W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and

collective rationality in organization fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147-160.


31

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Table 4: Technological context

Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

RA.1: Mobile banking is a convenient way to manage finances.

RA.2: Mobile banking allows me to manage my finance effectively.

RA.3: Using mobile banking enables me to do banking transactions more quickly.

RA.4: Using mobile banking enables me to do banking transactions more quickly.

RA.5: Using mobile banking gives me greater control over my bank accounts

RA.6: Mobile banking has more advantages as compared to other methods

PaS1: I think that the personal information that I provide on mobile is well protected.

PaS2: Mobile banking system need to be private and confidential

PaS3: I think that the confidentiality and privacy of my personal information is assured when I do mobile banking.

PaS4: Security concern is very essential in order to adopt mobile banking system.

PaS5: I think that online transactions carried out on mobile are secure.

PaS6: You trust the mobile banking system and believe that it is a well-reliable system.

EU1: Learning to operate mobile banking is easy for me.

EU2: Its easily for me to remember how to operate the mobile banking services.

EU3: I find it easy to operate mobile banking.

EU4: It would be easy for me to become skillful in using mobile banking services.

EU5: Overall, I find the mobile banking is easy to use.

CB1: Mobile Banking is compatible with my lifestyle.

CB2: Mobile Banking meets the way I like to manage my finances.

CB3: I feel that mobile banking meets my daily activities well.

CB4: Using mobile banking is completely compatible with my current situation.

CB5: I think that the use of mobile banking fits well with the way I like to do my banking transactions.

Con1: When I come to use mobile banking system, there is always Internet available to use any.

Con2: I regularly use the Internet to find/retrieve information.

Con3: The speed of Internet connection is sufficient to navigate and browse and use the mobile banking system.

Con4: I can easily send information through the internet connection.

Con5: I have instant access to mobile banking services from any location.

Con6: With the current internet services, I can browse multiple websites in half an hour or less.

Con7: I am satisfied with the quality of Internet connectivity provided to use mobile banking system.


33

Table 5: Organizational context


TMS.1: The mobile baking project will be introduced to me effectively by top management.

TMS.2: Top management has plans to get rid of obstacles that hinder the use of any new technology at the banks

TMS.3: Top management develops plans which are flexible enough to accommodate any changes required by the adoption

of mobile banking systems.

TMS.4: Top management seeks to maintain competitive advantage through the adoption of new technologies, and its uses in

its operations

TMS.5: Top management expects me to use the mobile banking services.

ITC1: The bank has the capability to use information systems for mobile banking services.

ITC2: The bank has the capability to identify innovative uses of information technology.

ITC3: The information and service provided by the mobile banking are extremely credible.

ITC4: Technology infrastructure such as internet, applications, electricity consumption allows fear use of mobile banking.

ITC5: The integrity of IT resources enables easy accessing of mobile banking system.

ITC6: The experience for accessing mobile banking system with current IT support is acceptable.

TS1: I always have online technical support whenever I face problem in the mobile banking services.

TS2: The respond of technical staff is fast and effective.

TS3: I think that mobile banking support is good.

TS4: With the availability of technical support, I do not feel worry using mobile banking services.

TS5: I am satisfied with the technical support.

Table 6: Environment context


SI.1: People who are important to me think that I should use mobile banking

SI.2: People who are familiar with me think that I should use mobile banking

SI.3: People who influence my behavior think that I should use mobile banking.

SI.4: Most people around me use mobile banking

SI.5: I use mobile banking because it is very famous

SI.6: The use of mobile banking gives me professional status.

Pol: Banks need to legislation and policies to apply mobile banking system.

Po2: Management shifts policy in all or some of the IT operations towards mobile banking system.

Po3: legislation and policies build good relationship and trust between bank and users.

Po4: There is legal protection in the use of mobile banking system.

Po5: The rules in bank that exist are sufficient to protect the use of mobile banking system.

GS1: Your bank needs the government support in order to adopt the mobile banking system.

GS2: You think the government support is enough to encourage your bank to adopt the mobile banking system.

GS3: The government support will be an important factor that would effect on your decision of adopting the mobile banking

system.

GS4: The laws that exist nowadays are sufficient to protect the use of mobile banking system.

GS5: The cost of using information technology can be reduced by government regulations and support.


34

Table 7: Mobile Banking Adoption


MBA.1: Mobile banking system is an attractive technological option to the banks.

MBA.2: Mobile banking system is an attractive banks process option

MBA.3: The bank’s focuses on new IT system projects, which aim to increase user’s satisfaction.

MBA.4: I want to know more about mobile Banking.

MBA.5: M-banking is always available for business

MBA6: I have the intention of managing my accounts using my mobile phone.

MBA7: I have the intention of making a transfer by mobile phone.

MBA8: The adoption of mobile banking system in IT operations will support the bank services process


35

TOWARDS TRANSFORMING ZAKAT COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION ROLES TO ADOPT

DIGITAL WALLET IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIAL FINANCING

Wan Nur Azira Wan Mohamed Salleh, Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid and Rohaida Basirudin

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100 Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: Digitalisation is a new phenomenon in the beginning of the twenty first century as

it connects and benefits a wider scope of humanity in a smart and elegant way. As most of

the world’s humanity are in poverty and refugees throughout the world are majority Muslims,

zakat as a tool can play a role in bringing social justice and social financing to them.

According to an expert, it is high time that the adoption of blockchain concept as in digital

wallet would be the solution in dealing with Islamic matters for example zakat collection and

distribution. The objectives of this paper is to study the potential adoption of blockchain as in

digital wallet towards the transformation of zakat collection and distribution roles to those in

need. The methodology is using previous studies by reviewing the literatures and utilising

secondary data to analyze and interpret data. With the dynamic technological

development especially the emergence of blockchain technology, zakat ecosystem could

be further enhanced as blockchain offers an immutable, security, trustworthy, and

transparent. However, before this can be realized, the Ulama (Islamic Scholars) need to

accept and understand the concept of blockchain technology as in digital wallet in the

perspective of Maqasid al-Shari’ah.

Keywords: Zakat Roles; Blockchain Technology; Digital Wallet; Social-Justice; Social

Financing.

1. Introduction

In this twenty first century, the advancement of technology influences our way of life,

even payment method goes digital. Individuals need no longer to dig through their wallet to

pay cash for payment, instead they use their credit and debit cards. Digital wallet helps

individual to use their smartphone application as a payment method thus, addressing the

potential pitfalls of using credit cards. The digital wallet is similar to a payment card except

that it works out of an application. The individual loads funds into the virtual wallet to use it

for payment of goods and services. The working mechanism differs from each types of digital

wallet either by using QR code scanning for establishing connection, or, using internet

transactions. With the advancement of technology, the payment landscape of zakat

changes accordingly which means a payer need no longer pay at the counter but

transaction can be conducted with convenience at home and with compliance to Shari’ah

Law. Every year, each Muslim has a duty to pay zakat, compulsory alms as stipulated in the

five pillars of Islam. The obligation of a Muslim to pay zakat contribution based on their wealth

accordingly to specific conditions as well as requirement.


36

2. Background and Method

Muslim population is on the rise, however the “Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)”

places one of contemporary challenges face by Muslims is poverty alleviation (Organization

of Islamic Cooperation, 2016). Pew Research Center (2017) reported the number of refugees

had increased sharply since 2014 who landed in Europe due to conflicts in Syria, Iraq and

Afghanistan. Besides 970,000 Muslim asylum seeker, the number is alarming that the Muslim

world in particular need to help alleviate poverty using zakat as an Islamic tool. Reaching

out to the needy for this group is very challenging due to time, geographical location,

bureaucracy, accessibility and security. With technological advancement, intentions to help

distribute zakat for the alleviation of poverty may be possible with the emergence of

blockchain technology in digital wallet. The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of

zakat in supporting social justice and as an enabler to social financing looks into the potential

use of blockchain technology as in digital wallet to enhance the collection and distribution

of zakat in systematic way that will benefit those in need. The methods to achieve the

objective is by reviewing literatures and using secondary data for analysis.


Islam encourage socio-economic justice so zakat collection and distribution for the poor and

underprivileged in the society will equally benefit them (Wahab and Abdul Rahman, 2011).

The aim of Islam is to support social justice. The most salient values of the Islamic financial

system are fairness and socio-economic justice”. Clearly the importance of zakat for social

justice is found in the Qur’an and the teachings of it is practice by Muslims all over the world.

In other words, in terms of Islamic financial system, social justice is very important for the

Islamic economy. From such zakat activities, the country benefits in terms of alleviating

poverty for the growth of the economy. Zakat is an enabler to socio-economic prosperity

and equitable distribution of wealth. Through a reduction in wealth concentration, social

cohesion will be improved. Research relating zakat and technology has attracted

researchers to look into the possibility of maximising the technology advancement in zakat

management and dealing with factors arising from it. Quinn (2018) suggests zakat as an

alternative funding solution to address 22.5 million refugees who are in need of assistance. It

was reported the humanitarian funding deficits had reached USD$16.7 billion and globally,

collection of zakat is estimated at USD$200 billion to USD$1 trillion. Quinn (2018) highlights that

zakat as a tool is not well utilised but suggested to take the advantage of innovative

technology, financial governance and humanitarian advocacy in addressing funding of

refugees. But, in terms of zakat distribution, best practice is to bind internationally the overall

collection and distribution of zakat. The report proposed to create a unified zakat collection

and tracking system across countries, religious institutions and non-governmental

organisations.

4. Conclusion

Blockchain offers an immutable, security and transparent thus addressing the stabilisation

of the Islamic non-bank financial system for zakat activities addressing the world’s problem

of alleviating poverty and achieving social-justice. However, the first step is to introduce the

blockchain technology to the Ulama (Islamic Scholars) regarding the concept, knowledge

and characteristics of blockchain technology in the perspective of Maqasid al-Shari’ah for

their acceptance in dealing with Islamic social financing purposes.


37

Acknowledgement

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

References

[1] Abdullah, N., Derus, A. M., & Al-Malkawi, H.-A. N. 2015. The effectiveness of zakat in

alleviating poverty and inequalities: A measurement using a newly developed

technique. Humanomics: The International Journal of Systems and Ethics, 31(3), 314-

329.

[2] Abdullahi Shafiu, I. 2019. Zakah as tool for social cause marketing and corporate

charity: a conceptual study. Journal of Islamic Marketing, 10(1), 191-207.

doi:10.1108/JIMA-03-2017-0025

[3] Ahmad, I., & Ma'in, M. 2014. The Efficiency of Zakat Collection and Distribution:

Evidence from Two Stage Analysis. Journal of Economic Coorporation and

Development, 35, 133-170.

[4] Al-Zoubi, H., Maghyereh, A., Al-Zu'bi, B., & Bhatti, M. 2008. Does issuing government

debt needed as a Ponzi scheme in Islamic finance: A general equilibrium model.

Managerial Finance, 34(10), 726-736.

[5] Hossain, I., Muhammad, A. D., Jibril, B. T., & Kaitibie, S. 2019. Support for smallholder

farmers through Islamic instruments. International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern

Finance and Management, 12(2), 154-168. doi:10.1108/IMEFM-11-2018-0371

[6] Laurence, T. 2019. Introduction to Blockchain Technology: The many faces of

blockchain technology in the 21st century. The Netherlands: Van Haren Publishing.

[7] Mahomed, Z. 2018. Classical Zakat Modelling for the Blockchain age inspiration from

Umar bin Abdul Aziz. Kuala Lumpur: International Centre for Education in Islamic

Finance.

[8] Mohamed Fisol, W. N., Mohd Saufi, M. S. A., Albasri, S., & Alipiah, F. 2018. INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MAQASID AL-SHARIAH.

[9] Muhammad, S., & Saad, R. A. J. 2016. The Moderating Effect of Subjective Norms on

the Relationship between Peer Influence and Intention to Pay Zakat. IOSR Journal of

Business and Management, 18, 74-76. doi:10.9790/487X-18217476

[10] Mulyadi, Hakim, A. R., Muazid, A. S., Supriyono, & Meira, E. 2018, October 29-30, 2018).

E-Zakat: Redesign the collection and distribution of Zakat. Paper presented at the 2nd

International Conference on Islamic Finance, Economic and Business 2018 (ICIFEB

2018), Jakarta, Indonesia.

[11] Organization of Islamic Cooperation. 2016. Ten-Year-Programme of Action 2016-2025.

Retrieved from Istanbul, Turkey: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/OIC_en.en.mfa

[12] Pew Research Center. 2015. The Future of World Religions: Population Growth

Projections, 2010-2050: Why Muslims are rising fastest and the unaffiliated are shrinking

as a share of the world's population. Retrieved from

https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-

content/uploads/sites/11/2015/03/PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsFullReport.pdf


38

[13] Pew Research Center. 2017. Europe's Growing Muslim Population: Muslims are

projected to increase as a share of Europe's population - even with no future migration.

Retrieved from https://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-

population/

[14] Wahab Norazlina, A. 2011. A framework to analyse the efficiency and governance of

zakat institutions. Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research, 2(1), 43-62.

doi:10.1108/17590811111129508

[15] World Population Review. 2019. Muslim population by country by population 2019.

Retrieved 6 November 2019, from World Population Review

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/muslim-population-by-country/


39

IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING BEHAVIOR ON PERCEIVED PERFORMANCE OF BIG

4 AND NON BIG 4 AUDIT FIRMS IN PAKISTAN

Sabra Munir1,2, Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid1, Farrukh Jamil3 and Muhammad Aamir4

1Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

2Department of Management Sciences, FAST National University of Computer and

Emerging Sciences, Department of Research & Development, PAC Group of College,

Pakistan 3Department of Management Sciences, FAST National University of Computer and

Emerging Sciences, Pakistan 4Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract: The aim of this study is to find the impact of knowledge sharing behaviors (KSB) on

perceived performance of Big 4 audit firms in Pakistan and comparing it with impact of KSB

on the perceived performance of non big 4 audit firms in Pakistan. Cross sectional survey

method was used to collect data from audit personnel of the big 4 audit firms and “A

category” ranked accountancy firms in Pakistan through purposive sampling. 207 valid

responses were analyzed through SPSS using multiple regression and PROCESS macro (Hayes,

2013) for the Big 4 analyses while 172 valid responses were analyzed for the non Big 4 audit

firms using the same approach of SPSS using multiple regression as mentioned above . The

results revealed KSB and its three dimensions i.e. organizational communication, personal

communication and communities of practice were significantly related to perceived

organizational performance while the facet of written communication was found to have

no direct relationship in big 4. Compared to this, the analyses of non Big 4 showed that

personal communication and communities of practice were significantly related to

perceived organizational performance while organizational communication and written

communication were found to have no direct relationship.

Keywords: Audit Firms; Knowledge Sharing Behavior; Perceived Performance

1. Introduction

The concept of knowledge-based organizations has emphasized the importance of

intellectual resources as a key to sustainable competitive advantage (Teece, 2003). The

main focus of such organizations is effective management of knowledge via creation, usage,

implementation and sharing of knowledge. Knowledge sharing enables problem solving

through combining the employees’ skills, knowledge, and experience (Wang & Wang,

2012).Yin (2009) indicated that knowledge can be shared via written communication,

personal interaction, organizational communication and communities of practice.

Knowledge sharing carries great importance in professional service sector (Hasan, 2011).

Auditing firms are among such service sectors where the skills and knowledge of auditors are

prime elements in satisfactory service delivery (Arel, Brody, & Pany, 2005). Due to the

increased work requirements on the part of the audit firms internationally as well as in Pakistan

(Aldamen, Duncan, Kelly, McNamara, & Nagel, 2012), it has become imperative for them to


40

enhance their performance to meet their own increased costs and performance standards

One approach to achieve higher performance is by use of knowledge sharing systematically

within the firms Knowledge sharing among employees can improve the integrity of audit

process and help in formulating the most appropriate audit opinion. This leads towards

increase organizational performance in audit firms (Chow, Ho, & Vera-Munoz, 2008).

This study will contribute theoretically to make effective knowledge sharing strategies and

implementation them to enhance performance.

“To enhance the performance of auditing firm even after new regulations, increased costs,

and with existing employees, the probe can determine how knowledge sharing enhances

the perceived performance of auditing firms of Pakistan and analyses the role of different

dimensions of knowledge sharing on perceived performance of auditing firms.”

1. To find out the impact of knowledge sharing behaviour on perceived performance of

auditing firms in Pakistan.

2. To find the impact of different dimensions of knowledge sharing on perceived

performance in auditing firms of Pakistan.

Figure 1 Research Model

2. Methodology

This is a quantitative and explanatory inquiry in which data is collected at single point

of time. Sampling frame consisted of audit personnel ranging from staff associates to partners

of the Big 4 and non Big 4 audit and accountancy firms. Cronbach’s Alpha of each scale

was measured to establish the reliability of the results As the results are all greater than 0.5,

hence they are all highly reliable (Nunnally, 1967).

Communities of Practices (CP)

Organizational Communication

Personal Interaction (PI)

Knowledge Sharing

Behavior

Written Contribution (WC)

Perceived Organizational

Performance


41

Table 1 Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha N of Items

Performance .912 12

Knowledge sharing behavior .957 28

Table 2 Regression Results

Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized

Coefficients

Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

Big 4 Non

Big 4

Big 4 Non

Big 4

Big 4 Non

Big 4

Big 4 Non Big

4

KSB .476 .556 .046 .062 .548 .742 .000 .000

WC .047 .131 .047 .092 .075 .158 .317 .160

OC .283 .187 .077 .099 .352 .303 .000 .064

PI .306 .345 .079 .103 .383 .508 .000 .001

CP .088 -.088 .042 .100 .154 -.135 .039 .384

Discussion

For our objectives of KSB and its dimensions with organizational performance an

overall support was received in case of Big 4 & non big 4 Audit firms. It was validated that

KSB in auditing firms are responsible for improvement in perceived performance.

Conclusion and implications

The present study proved that knowledge sharing significant predictors of perceived

performance in Big 4 & non big 4 auditing firms in Pakistan. Three dimensions of KSB i.e.

organizational communication, personal interaction and communities of practice were

found to act as the source of improvement in perceived organizational performance yet

written communication was found to have no significant relation with perceived

organizational performance. The research has contributed to the knowledge management

literature in several ways. The auditors should codify their prior experience and knowledge

so that their peers can take advantage from them and carry out the audit performance in

efficient manner. The auditors should enhance informal interaction to share the issues and

suggest possible solutions. In addition they should share their new knowledge and

experiences with peers so that overall audit assignments can be completed with full

vigilance. Formal communication channels should promote the ideas sharing, solutions of

complex auditing issues, insights on working methods for detecting frauds and errors, learning

from experiences and suggestions for improvement in future audit assignments. In this way

auditors can have improved working when role-related information and decision making is

more knowledge and skill based that will contribute towards the effective performance.

References

Aldamen, H., Duncan, K., Kelly, S., McNamara, R., & Nagel, S. (2012). Audit committee

characteristics and firm performance during the global financial crisis. Accounting &

Finance, 52(4), 971-1000.


42

Arel, B., Brody, R. G., & Pany, K. (2005). Audit firm rotation and audit quality. The CPA Journal,

75(1), 36.

Chow, C. W., Ho, J. L., & Vera-Munoz, S. C. (2008). Exploring the extent and determinants of

knowledge sharing in audit engagements. Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting &

Economics, 15(2), 141-160.

Hasan, S. (2011). Role of waqf in enhancing Muslim small and medium enterprises (SMES) in

Singapore. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Islamic

Economics and Finance, Qatar.

Nunnally, J. C. (1967). Psychometric theory, New York: McGraw-Hill Book company.

Teece, D. J. (2003). Expert talent and the design of (professional services) firms. Industrial and

corporate change, 12(4), 895-916.

Wang, Z., & Wang, N. (2012). Knowledge sharing, innovation and firm performance. Expert

systems with applications, 39(10), 8899-8908.

Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (applied social research

methods). London and Singapore: Sage.


43

EXPLORING THE CHANGING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ROLE IN THE CONTEXT

OF DIGITAL BANKING TRANSFORMATION

Kartina Abdul Latif, Nik Hasnaa Nik Mahmood and Nor Raihana Mohd Ali

Science Management and Design, Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra, 54100, Kuala Lumpur

Abstract: This study aims to explore the changing Human Resources Management (HRM)

function role in the context of digital banking transformation. Exploratory research was

performed through the case study method, focusing on one banking institution undergoing

the digital banking transformation in Malaysia. Respondents are selected HRM personnel,

employees and business leaders across the key business functions. Transcripts were coded

with the aid of NVivo software using a structured thematic analysis, to generate distilled data

summaries and illustrative extracts to search for and interpret patterns of evidence. The

results of interview finding analysis state that HRM function in BankCoA is aligning its practices

with the Bank’s business strategy of transforming the institution into a digital bank. The findings

showed predominantly, the key priorities centred at looking into the culture excellence

programme, significant investments being made on talent capability building programmes

and restructuring of the HRM function to make it more digital ready and efficient. This case

study is relevant for HRM managers in other banking institution undergoing the business

transformation, which can serve as a benchmark of HRM focus to be applied to their own

organizations

Keywords: Human Resource Management; Banking Institution; Human Resource Priorities

1. Introduction

Digital disruption is forcing transformation across all industries, including and especially in

financial services industry (FSI). The reality of this are resulting in banks and insurance

companies being put under pressure to cope with the several shifting forces in the market

place such as challenging macroeconomic conditions, increasing competitive pressures for

market leadership, stringent regulatory environment and changing customer expectations

(Deloitte, 2018). In addition to traditional sources of competition, banks and insurance

companies have to deal with the emergence of financial start-up companies. As customer

preferences are shaped by their digital experiences outside banking, these non-traditional

players such as these financial technology companies (FinTechs) are often able to address

customer expectations of a fast, seamless experience through bespoke services, digital

infrastructure and platform ecosystems (Omarini, 2017). As a result, banking institutions are at

the cusp of a digital revolution. Every facets of the businesses need to adapt to these

disruptive external and internal forces of change.

As such, in response to changing to changing business demands and the evolving role

of HRM, the objective of this study is to explore what does this mean in terms of managing

human capital requirements for the future and how has the HRM function of a banking

institution prioritises its HRM practices in response to the increased competition for digital


44

banking transformation. Based on the research objective and current understanding, the

following research questions are formulated for this study:

a) What are the external and internal factors driving changes on BankCoA’s business

imperatives?

b) How does the HRM function in BankCoA prioritises its HRM practices to address the

on-going changes in meeting the needs of the digital banking transformation

agenda?


The study focused on an islamic banking institution, BankCoA based in Malaysia. In order to

collect the qualitative data, the case-study approach was chosen using interview methods

and field observations. In-depth interviews were conducted and saturation point was

attained with seven HRM professionals, three business heads and four high potential talent

across the different divisions in BankCoA. All of the interviews were conducted in private and

each interview lasted between 45 and 75 minutes and recorded so that the information

shared by informants were looked in-depth. Interviews from the target participants were

conducted, transcribed and analyzed during and after the data collection phase which is

referred to as the back and forth weaving between theory and data by Bryman (2004). Using

NVivo 12, all of the transcribed texts, notes from the observation session as well as meeting

notes were all entered into a database, as per the required appropriate structure of coding.

The open coding technique was first employed (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) which allows for

categorizing of data into narrow themes to enable its systemization before placing it under

the themes emerging from data axial coding. The collected data was also triangulated

between the interviews, observations and through the various document analysis. Based on

the patterns of evidence and analysis, broad themes were generated and used to guide

the discussion on the case study.


3.1 What are the external and internal factors driving changes on BankCoA’s business

imperatives?

From the word cloud visualization analysis, external factors such as adherence to

compliance and customer protection featured prominently from the interviews. Effective

management of on-going regulatory impacts and reducing compliance costs are top-of-

mind of the business leaders in BankCoA. Regulation, particularly for banks, has become

significantly more complex as banks grow in size and sophistication. The growing complexity

in regulation is inevitable due to rapid advancements in the business of banking,

compounded by the process of globalisation and changes in the banks' operating

landscape and interactions with other components of the financial system. Continuous

regulatory changes are necessary and will be the norm as efforts are continuously taken to

reduce financial crime, safeguard customers interest and overall financial stability. BankCoA

is on the journey of digitizing its front and back office activities, while driving business

operations. The bank is on the quest to drive strategic growth while effectively and efficiently

meeting regulatory compliance obligations. As one interviewee puts it:


45

“Banks have to deal with forces that shapes the industry – compliance, audit, risk

and legal (CARL) forces as well as cost of technology demand banks’ utmost

attention. There are also challenges from evolving expectations as a result of digital

customer experience, competition from non-banks (fintech companies). This

creates an unlevel regulatory playing field…”

(Participant1)

In relation to the key internal factors impacting on HRM focus areas, according to the

thematic analysis, six broad themes emerged: -.

i) Revenue growth and increase market share

ii) Technological change

iii) Obsolete infrastructure

iv) Increase internal competitive excellence

v) Changing employee expectations at workplace

vi) Focus on being a value-based organization

As such, the above are some of the multidimensional trends and factors from external and

internal environments shared by the interviewees, happening within BankCoA’s ecosystem.

These factors are inducing the bank to strategize and plan for acquiring and retaining assets

from new and existing customers. Success depends on how BankCoA quickly respond to

opportunities for innovation.

3.2 How does the HRM function in BankCoA prioritises its HRM practices to address the on-

going changes in meeting the needs of the digital banking transformation agenda?

To explore how HRM function in BankCoA is responding to the business changes as a result

of the digital banking transformation imperatives, the researcher seeks to understand what

is being prioritised at the HRM function level in order to accelerate the digital banking

transformation readiness. According to the outcomes of the qualitative phase of this

research, there are three main themes arising from the HRM focus areas:

i) Focus on culture excellence programme

ii) Accelerate talent capability programme in building current digital capabilities and

nurturing future leaders

iii) Restructuring the HRM function to deliver greater business impact and drive HRM and

business innovation

As such, the results of the three key themes of HRM prioritization to address the need of

digital banking transformation are in line with Rimon (Rimon, 2017), Jesuthasan (2017) and

Diromualdo et al. (2018), who point out that the transformative impact of digital technology

is radically changing the type of services offered by HRM and how they are delivered. This is

particularly relevant as the digital transformation will require new mindset, new tools and

skillsets in delivering customer expectations. As highlighted by Kumar and Patrick (2018), the

HRM function needs to play the role of a catalyst to make sure the culture and mindset

change is fit for the digital banking business requirements. It is contingent upon the HRM

team as custodians of employee relations and engagement must ensure that change

process is implemented as per the transformation process. As such, talent and capability

development are one of the major business and HRM agenda. This view is supported by Ford

(2017), Tatoglu et al. (2016) and Waheed et al. (2012) who emphasized talent development

is strategically more important in today’s volatile business environment, owing to the fact


46

that such focus can aid organizations to achieve strategic business goals and form the

foundation to implement business strategy.

4. Conclusion

The key conclusion of this study is that the HRM function of BankCoA is significantly aware

of the impact of the digital banking transformation on the people and organization

perspective by responding to the HRM practices and initiatives which it thinks is appropriate

for the organization. The focus on culture excellence programme, talent development

initiatives and restructuring of HRM function means HRM is also looking at related processes

on communication management for change, leadership development, performance

management, capability building and HRM improvement activities are being reviewed for

effectiveness and better impact. The research offers an insight on the practical current on-

goings in a banking institution undergoing a business transformation. This will assist future

researchers in the field of HRM to provide a deeper understanding of the HRM phenomena

in an organization setting and develop a theoretical foundation for further studies.

References

Bryman, A. (2004). Social Research Methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Deloitte. (2018). 2019 Banking and Capital Markets Outlook. Reimagining transformation.

DiRomualdo, A., El-Khoury, D., & Girimonte, F. (2018). HR in the digital age: how digital

technology will change HR’s organization structure, processes and roles. Strategic HR

Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr-08-2018-0074

Ford, D. G. (2017). Talent Management and Its Relationship to Successful Veteran Transition

Into the Civilian Workplace: Practical Integration Strategies for the HRD Professional.

Advances in Developing Human Resources. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422316682736

Jesuthasan, R. (2017). HR’s new role: rethinking and enabling digital engagement. Strategic

HR Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr-01-2017-0009

Omarini, A. (2017). The Digital Transformation in Banking and The Role of FinTechs in the New

Financial Intermediation Scenario The Wave of Digitalization in Banks. International

Journal of Finance, Economics and Trade (IJFET).

Rimon, G. (2017). Six surprising truths about how digital transformation will change HR.

Strategic HR Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr-02-2017-0010

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for

developing grounded theory. Carlifornia: Corwin Thousand Oaks.

Sunil Kumar R & Harold Andrew Patrick. (2018). Transforming Role of HRM: Challenges, Policies

and Practice in the Present Context. International Journal of Research in Business

Management (IMPACT: IJRBM).

Tatoglu, E., Glaister, A. J., & Demirbag, M. (2016). Talent management motives and practices

in an emerging market: A comparison between MNEs and local firms. Journal of World

Business. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2015.11.001

Waheed, S., Zaim, A., & Zaim, H. (2012). Talent Management in Four Stages *. The USV Annals

of Economics and Public Administration.


47

EFFECT OF ABSENTEEISM RATE TOWARDS WORK PERFORMANCE AT

TELECOMMUNICATION OPERATION CENTRE IN MALAYSIA

Nooramirah Najwa Borhanuddin, Roslina Mohammad and Zuritah A.Kadir

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics

Abstract: Absenteeism in the workplace affect the staff working performance. This paper

aims to study the effect of absenteeism rate towards staff’s working performance at

telecommunication operation centre in Malaysia. Attendance data for twenty staffs was

collection from attendance management system and analysed using R-studio software.

Based on analysis, it can be concluded low absenteeism rates will impact high percentage

of work staff efforts.

Keywords: Absenteeism Rate, Work Performance, Telecommunication

1. Introduction

Absenteeism is an unscheduled absence from work for any reason [1]. Absent employee

compromises the profitability of the employer by decreasing the usual productivity and

performance of the team of workers [2]. The excessive value of misplaced organizational

productivity and the motivational factors of every day working personnel affect the

sustainability of organizational performance. Lost employee productivity, leadership

intimidation and abuse, and worker fitness problems can impact worker absenteeism, which

affects organizational performance. In business, employee absenteeism is the predominant

cause for lost productiveness [3]. The intention for leaders of groups to focus attention on the

economic bottom line growing profits and workplace productivity, whilst lowering

organizational expenses.

Companies in Malaysia have the second easiest number of days lost in term of work

time per employee per year competed to their friends in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia,

in accordance to the Malaysia’s Healthiest Workplace with the aid of AIA Vitality survey [4,5].

An employer is said to have misplaced sixty-seven days of work time per worker in a 12

months due to absence and presenteeism. This is estimated to have value an organization

RM2.7 million per year on average. Malaysia’s body of workers is commonly unhealthy, where

sixty-four percentages (64%) of those surveyed are bodily inactive, 90 percentages (90%) do

not consume a balanced diet and fifty-three percent (53%) trip work-related stress.

According to researcher, recent estimate put unplanned or unscheduled absence

cost at 8.7 percent (87%) of payroll, and employers are searching for the information to better

understand how multiplied absenteeism costs can have an effect on the company’s bottom

line and what can be performed to battle this issue [4] . While employers assume employees

to miss a certain number of workdays each year, excessive absences can equate to

decreased productiveness and can have a most important effect on employer finance,

morale and other factors.


48

2. Methods

In this study, in order to obtain the absenteeism rate, the two years attendance record

for twenty (20) employees from telecommunication operation centre was collected and

abstracted from company internal attendance record system. The data collected was

analysed using R statistics software. R is a statistical computing language and tool

environment friendly to function records analysis. R comes with a range of wide variety of

applications based on its functionality. While installation R software contains the base

package, which is requisite to run R and includes the most quintessential functions. The

different packages contained in the base gadget encompass utils, stats, datasets, graphics,

grid, methods, tools, parallel, compiler, splines. There are also advocate packages: boot,

class, cluster, code tools, foreign, survival, MASS, spatial. Matrix. We have used R Studio which

gives us integrated improvement surroundings for R. Other than the above point out bundle

we have established some extra libraries to R for performing thing analysis and different data

mining task. We covered GPA Rotation, Psych programs to function tasks with higher result

[6].


3.1 Total Working days and total working hours for 2 years

Table 1 showed the total working days and total working hours for 2 years. Based on the

result compute, the total working days for 20 staffs was 465.65 days and the average working

days was 4446.275 days. The highest working days is 471 days for staff 9 and staff 17.

Meanwhile, figure 3 showed the total working hours for 20 staff in 2 years. It showed that the

highest working hours was recorded by staff 17 with 4499.99. The total working hours for 20

staffs was 88929.98 hours and the average working days was 4446.275 hours.

Table 1. Total Working days and total working hours for each 20 staffs

Staff ID

Total

Working

Days (2

years)

Total

Working

Hours (2

Years)

Staff ID Total

Working

Days (2

years)

Total

Working

Hours (2

Years)

Staff 1 463 4421.45 Staff 10 466 4447.63

Staff 2 464 4432.93 Staff 11 468 4447.37

Staff 3 469 4482.74 Staff 12 467 4471.63

Staff 4 466 4452.46 Staff 13 469 4482.43

Staff 5 463 4419.11 Staff 14 467 4459.42

Staff 6 463 4428.79 Staff 15 466 4448.22

Staff 7 457 4358.4 Staff 16 470 4492.49

Staff 8 468 4463.35 Staff 17 471 4499.99

Staff 9 471 4495.67 Staff 18 458 4369.2

3.2 Absenteeism rate VS Work Effort

Figure 1 below showed the absenteeism rate and percentage of work effort for 20 staffs. The

analysis from R studio computed that the highest absenteeism rate was 6.18 and the lowest

rate was 4.37. The average absenteeism rate was 5.15. The figure also showed that the

highest work effort was staff 10 with 64.47. From the figure, it also showed that the staff that


49

had high absenteeism rate recorded low percentage work effort. Meanwhile, the staff that

had lowest absenteeism rate recoded high percentage work effort. It can show that, the

absenteeism rate does affect the staff working performance. Employee absenteeism has a

direct influence staff performance [7]. Excessive levels of absenteeism lead to inferior

satisfactory of service, misplaced productivity, and decreased morale of co-workers.

Figure 1. Absenteeism rate vs Percentage of Work effort

4. Conclusion

This paper study the absenteeism rate at the telecommunication operation centre. Based

on attendance record, the data was analysed and computed using R studio software. From

data analysis, it can be concluded that the absenteeism does affect the staff’s working

performance. For future recommendation, the study can explore the cause of the issue in

verifying and assessing attendance records and measurement of staff KPI in the

Telecommunication Operation Centre.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to express the greatest appreciation and utmost gratitude to the

Ministry of Higher Education, MyBrain15 MyPhD Ministry of Higher Education, UTM Razak

School of Engineering & Advanced Technology and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) for

all the support given in making the study a success. VOT UTM : Q.K130000.2656.16J42.

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workplace: the case of an Italian multiutility company. Procedia-Social and Behavioral

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Employee Absenteeism. Walden University.

63.34

63.47

64.15

63.74

63.33

63.2

63.47

62.25

64.0264.75

63.74

64.25

64.15

63.88

63.61

64.29

64.43

62.65

63.61

6…

5.33 5.33

4.655.06

5.47 5.475.19

6.18

5.06

4.51

5.194.92 4.78

5.06 5.004.65

4.37

6.02

5.205.47

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

61

61.5

62

62.5

63

63.5

64

64.5

65

Staff1

Staff2

Staff3

Staff4

Staff5

Staff6

Staff7

Staff8

Staff9

Staff10

Staff11

Staff12

Staff13

Staff14

Staff15

Staff16

Staff17

Staff18

Staff19

Staff20

Ab

sen

teei

sm R

ate

Wo

rk E

ffo

rt (

%)

Staff ID

Absenteeism Rate VS Work Effort(%)

Percentage Work Effort (%) Absenteeism Rate


50

[3] Kocakulah, M. C., Kelley, A. G., Mitchell, K. M., & Ruggieri, M. P. (2016). Absenteeism

problems and costs: causes, effects and cures. The International Business & Economics

Research Journal (Online), 15(3), 89.

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page 1-30).


51

DISTRIBUTED REPRESENTATION OF ENTITY MENTIONS WITHIN AND ACROSS MULTIPLE

TEXT DOCUMENTS

Aliakbar Keshtkaran, Siti Sophiayati Yuhaniz and Mohammad Reza Rostami

Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,

54100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: Regarding to the importance of entities as a base of information for several NLP

applications, Cross-Document Coreference Entity Resolution (CDCR) provides techniques for

the identification of textual mentions of entities and clustering co-referent mentions across

multiple documents. In such context, while prior works employ Knowledge Bases (KB) as a

structured information resource to enrich the context of mentions, however these methods

have limitations with KB’s unknown entities, with effects on the accuracy and performance

of the task. Accordingly, this paper presents a new approach to improve the state-of-the-art

by concentration on the knowledge provided by the input text of the mentions, regardless

of any external knowledge resource. For this purpose, we first construct the context of

mentions using the sequence of informative words around the mention (known as content-

words). Furthermore, by abstraction of the mention vector representation to a limited size

using an artificial neural network technique of continuous representation of words (i.e.

Word2Vec), we reduce the computational cost of the co-referring mentions sub-task. By

analyzing the results of experiments with two datasets, significant gains in the accuracy of

CDCR as well as run-time efficiency are achieved, compared to the best prior methods.

Keywords: Coreference Resolution, Cross-Document Coreference Resolution, Distributed

Representation of Words, Information Extraction, Natural Language Processing

1. Introduction

To extract the locked information in unstructured text, Natural Language Processing (NLP)

is used to discover and produce structured information. Among various sub-tasks of NLP

Coreference Resolution (CR) is essential to identify entity mentions in the text and resolve

them into equivalent classes [1-3]. In such context, an entity can be a real-world person,

organization, or place, which is referred to, by a mention, i.e. a word or phrase referring to

such an entity (Figure 2).

Figure 2. An Example of Coreference Resolution

Expanding the scope of CR to process a collection of documents and resolving the

entities across the documents leads to Cross-Document Coreference Resolution (CDCR) [4-

8].


52

This research focuses on a new approach to cast entities of documents in an optimized

fixed-length dimension size of vector with considering the sequence of words and phrases in

the document to outperform the accuracy of the task.

2. Approach

In our proposed model we assume that an input set of documents 𝐷 = {𝑑1, 𝑑2,⋯ } with a

set of the entity mentions of all documents 𝑀 = {𝑚11,𝑚12,⋯ ,𝑚11,𝑚11,⋯ }, where 𝑚𝑖𝑗𝜖𝑑𝑖. As

output, the model computes and equivalence relation over M with equivalence classes

𝐶𝑙where 𝐶𝑙 ∩ 𝐶𝑛 = ∅ (for 𝑘 ≠ 𝑛) and ∪𝑘 𝐶𝑙 = 𝑀. The number of desired classes is needed to be

computed by the algorithm, since it is unknown in advance. The model majorly consists of

three operational stages (Figure 3):

Figure 3. The Stages of Cross-Document Coreference Resolution Model

2.1 Pre-Processing

Given an input corpus of text documents, initially text cleaning is run to cast them into plain

text. It then detects the entity mentions in the text and their lexical type such as person,

organization, or location. The input of Intra-Document Coreference Resolution (ICR) is formed

which is a collection of text documents with tagged identified mentions. In this step, Local

chains of coreference mentions are resolved by the state-of-the-art CR tool. The annotated

texts and local chains of co-referent mentions form the in input of the second stage.

2.2 Entity Vectorization

To form the sequence of extracted entities in previous stage surrounding with their context

four steps and their details are defined in six parts: Mention Representation, Content Words

Tagging, Context Window Size, Contextual Word Sequence Based on Document Text,

Contextual Word Sequence Based on Mention Chain and Vectorization of the Entities.

2.3 Clustering

Through the proper distribution of mention chain vectors in the vector space, obtained in the

previous stage, a clustering algorithm is used in the model to group the mentions based on

their similarities. Specifically, a density-based clustering algorithm called DBSCAN (Density-

Based Spatial Clustering for Applications with Noise) is used in the model. The output of this

stage is the cross-document coreference equivalence classes of entity mentions.

3. Evaluation

3.1 Benchmark Datasets

To evaluate and compare the accuracy of our model against state-of-the-art baselines,

we run the experiments with the following two available benchmarking datasets. In our

experiments, only lexical type of person is considered which is the most demanding type of

entities in the datasets. We conducted all of the experiments on a 2 core Intel i7 2.40 GHz

processor with 12 GB RAM running Windows 10.

John Smith Corpus: This dataset [11] is a highly ambiguous dataset which consisted of 197

articles from 1996 and 1997 editions of the New York Times related to 35 different real “John

Smith”s.

Pre-processing Entity Vectorization Clustering


53

WePS-2 Collection: This collection is used in the Web People Search 2 competition [12].

Using Yahoo search for 30 different people, the top 150 Web search results create the

collection of 4,500 documents of this dataset.

3.2 Results

Table 3: Results on Datasets

Without

KB

John Smith WePS-2

B3-F1 φ3-

CEAF

B3-F1 φ3-

CEAF

Our Model 85.93% 79.57% 78.28% 72.97%

[15] - - 75.7% -

[5] - - 76.9% -

[8] 69.7% - - -

[7] 66.4% - - -

[5] - 75.21% 69.89% 83.48% (74.02%)

[15] - - - (83.8%) -

4. Conclusion

In this research we have presented our model for cross-document coreference resolution

(CDCR) task. It performs density-based clustering over fixed-length dimension size of entity

vectors obtained from a distributed representation of entities of documents. The effective

sequence of words extracted from mentions and their context achieved by including

content words of the context. The casting approach for single unique word as mention

representative is the key point of this model to process mentions with any number of tokens

effectively. It is encouraging to note that our approach, using only the input documents

regardless of any external knowledge, performs competitively with related works with

improve accuracy and performance of the task. However, due to the small size of the

datasets, we require further experiments for future works.

References

[1] H. Hajishirzi, L. Zilles, D. S. Weld, and L. S. Zettlemoyer, "Joint Coreference Resolution

and Named-Entity Linking with Multi-Pass Sieves," in EMNLP, 2013, pp. 289-299.

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based on SemEval-2010 shared task 1," Language resources and evaluation, vol. 47, no. 3,

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Anaphora Resolution: Springer, 2016, pp. 283-313.

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W. Wang, "A systematic review and comparative analysis of cross-document coreference

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Lectures on Human Language Technologies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1-309, 2017.

[11] A. Bagga and B. Baldwin, "Entity-based cross-document coreferencing using the

vector space model," in Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Association for

Computational Linguistics and 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics-

Volume 1, 1998, pp. 79-85: Association for Computational Linguistics.

[12] J. Artiles, J. Gonzalo, and S. Sekine, "Weps 2 evaluation campaign: overview of the

web people search clustering task," in 2nd web people search evaluation workshop (WePS

2009), 18th www conference, 2009, vol. 9.

[13] A. Bagga and B. Baldwin, "Algorithms for scoring coreference chains," in The first

international conference on language resources and evaluation workshop on linguistics

coreference, 1998, vol. 1, pp. 563-566: Citeseer.

[14] X. Luo, "On coreference resolution performance metrics," in Proceedings of the

conference on Human Language Technology and Empirical Methods in Natural Language

Processing, 2005, pp. 25-32: Association for Computational Linguistics.

[15] H. Emami, "A Graph-based Approach to Person Name Disambiguation in Web," ACM

Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), vol. 10, no. 2, p. 4, 2019.


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56

Key Word Index Absenteeism Rate, 47, 48, 79

Aerospace, 16

Audit Firms, 39, 40, 41

Banking Institution, 43, 44, 45, 46

Blockchain Technology, 35, 36, 37

Conceptual Framework, 20, 21, 22

Coreference Resolution, 51, 52, 53, 54

Cost-Effective Design, 12, 14

Cronbach's Alpha, 24, 28, 29, 40, 41

Cross Linked Enzyme Aggregates, 1, 3

Cross-Document, 51, 52, 53, 54

Digital Wallet, 35, 36

Distributed Representation of Words, 51

Effect and Critical Analysis, 9

Failure Mode, 9, 10, 11, 12

Fuzzy Rule-Based, 9

Human Resource Management, 43

Human Resource Priorities, 43

Information Extraction, 51, 54

Internet of Educational Things, 20

Iraqi Banks, 24, 25, 27, 29

Iron (Fe), 16

Knowledge Sharing Behavior, 39, 40

Landfill, 4, 5, 6, 7

Leachate, 4, 5, 6

Limit Equilibrium Method, 12

Maltogenic Amylase, 1, 3

Mechanical Response, 16, 18

Microstructure, 16, 17, 18, 19

Mobile Banking Adoption, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31

Natural Language Processing, 51, 54

Optimization, 3, 12, 14

Perceived Performance, 39, 40, 41

Pilot Study, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29

Pollution, 4, 6

Porous Agent, 1, 2, 3

Process Control Valve, 9

Process Plant, 8

Recycling, 5, 7, 8

Reflective Thinking, 20, 21, 22

Risk Assessment, 9, 12

SLOPE/W, 12, 15

Social Financing, 35, 36

Social-Justice, 35, 36

Soil-nailed Wall, 12, 14

Solid Waste, 4, 5, 6, 7

Students’, 20, 21

Sucrose, 1, 2, 3

Telecommunication, 47, 48, 79

Theoretical Model, 20, 21, 22

Ti-6Al-4V Alloy, 16, 17, 18, 19

Work Performance, 47

Zakat Roles, 35

extended abstract...wan nur azira wan mohamed salleh, siti zaleha abdul rasid & rohaida...

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