Purpose - According to Smith (1996), research has proven that skills which are directly connected to the work and are obtained in the workplace are learned quicker, kept longer, and result in higher productivity than those acquired in the classroom. Hence, the study aimed to identify the key issues of workplace learning of new engineers in automotive industry.This paper explores
to what extent the knowledge and skills acquired by the new engineers at the job have equipped
them with job competency in the automotive industry.This study adopted a qualitative case study method to compare data from a private engineering college, a public university and an automotive manufacturing industry.The identified target groups include one human resource manager, six new engineering graduates, and 4 university lecturers.The finding shows that the training programs is essential to enhance specific knowledge and skills required by new engineers to perform a task at industry.The training programs are divided into two categories—formal and informal training—and each category consists of technical and non-technical training programs. Most of the training programs for the new engineers are technical and job related trainings conducted inhouse by internal trainers which seldom focus on personal development of soft skills.Overall, the orientation program served to introduce them to the organization's culture, values and systems.Undeniably, new engineers' training is essential to improve job performance in current job and to train new skills to improve productivity and to achieve the organization's current and future goals.All the new engineers involved in this study have pointed out that the amount of new knowledge to be learnt in the industry at the beginning of their employment was overwhelming.Most of the new engineers complained that not all the trainings took place as briefed during the orientation program. There were excellent career development plans shown during orientation program, but the plans have not been not executed as desired.For the OJT to be effective, it should be organized with well-trained and dedicated coach at the workplace. Qualified coach can ensure the new recruits are trained well, and improve job performance in current job and acquire new skills to achieve the organization's current and future goals.
Methodology - Based on the nature of this study, the researcher has used a qualitative case
study method to discover, understand, and explain in an in-depth manner the issues of workplace
training of new engineers in automotive industry. The interview questions were adapted from
Laulata (2007)'s study to suit the purpose of this study. One of the major automotive manufacturing industries located in the state of Selangor has been selected for the study.This Malaysian and
Japanese joint venture company which was established in 1970 has been producing non-national cars for the local and foreign market. In order to gauge the information for this study, a total of six new engineers (coded as NE1 to 6), one human resource manager (coded as HRm) and
two supervisors (coded as SV1 to 2) were selected for the interviews. Besides that, two lecturers
were selected from a private college in Cyberjaya (coded as LEC1 to 2) and the other two were selected from public universities located in Klang Valley (coded as LEC3 to 4).Overall, there were six engineers, one human resource manager and two supervisors involved in this study.Findings - Most of the new engineers appreciate the knowledge and experience gained during the induction program. The induction program served to introduce them to the organization's culture, values and systems. It was confirmed by Informant HRm that they conduct an induction program for all new recruits to introduce them to the new working environment. During the familiarization stage, they are exposed to the nature of their new work and taught how to
execute identified tasks. The new recruits are also briefed about the existing organizational
culture, values, vision, working conditions, safe working rules, processes and procedures and
the organizations expectations from new engineers. Besides that, organizations also provide
On-Job-Training (OJT) to new engineers for a period of 6 months and other formal training
programs for self-development. New engineers' training is essential to improve job performance in current job or to train new skills for a new job to improve productivity and to achieve the
organization's current and future goals.Almost all of the new engineers said that Toyota Business
Practice (TBP) was one of the most important training programs that they had attended. "The most appropriate way to develop new engineers is through on-job training, whereby they are attached
to their immediate superiors who are generally more experienced at a particular job. Immediate
superior will act as a coach or mentor to build relationship, guide in daily task and personal
development to enhance job performance and productivity.The mentors' function is to eventually motivate them to acquire the right knowledge and skills and perform job as per required standard" (SV1, 1.2).


Background: The possible gastrointestinal effects of khat (Catha edulis) chewing still under debate. Some authors are on the opinion that khat has a gastric and/or duodenal ul-cerogenic effect, while others denies this effect. Considering the absolutely different standpoints in this case, we have decided to investigate this contradiction in different experimental ulcer models of rat.
Materials and Methods: It is known that the main effective (amphetamine-like) constituent of the khat is cathinone, we have investigated the effect of 500 and 1000 ug/kg of its dose in stress (restrain) and drug (indomethacine) induced gastric, as well, as cyste-amine induced duodenal ulcer-models. It seems that in indomethacine and in stress induced models cathinone showed no ulcerogenic effect, moreover in the indomethacine induced model it showed a significant anti-ulcerogenic effect. Moreover, scanning electron microscopic investigations verified that the acute cathinone treatment has no detectable effect on gastric mucosa. In the cysteamine-induced duodenal ulcer-model cathinon showed neither ulcerogenic, nor antiulcerogenic effect.
Discussion and Conclusion: Moreover, our scanning electron microscopic investigations showed that basically no structural changes can be seen in the treated animals' liver; the only visible change is that the mitochondrial surface area of the treated liver is enlarged. According to our opinion our experimental results presented, gave evidence that khat, at least its cathinone content, have no gastrointestinal (ulcerogenic) effect.


A facile and efficient methodology of the synthesis of 6-(hydroxymethyl)purine derivatives (bases and nucleosides) was developed based on Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of 6-halopurines or N -protected 2-amino-6-halopurines with (benzoyloxymethyl)zinc iodide followed by deprotection. Regioselective hydroxymethylations of 2,6-dihalopurines were also studied and used for the synthesis of 2-chloro-6-(hydroxymethyl)- or 2,6-bis(hydroxymethyl)purines. The 6-(hydroxymethyl)purine ribonucleoside 5f exerted high cytostatic effect and moderate inhibition of adenosine deaminase, while all the other derivatives were much less effective or entirely inactive.


An implant-retained overdenture is less expensive than a fixed implant-retained prosthesis; however, using ball attachments on abutments that are nonparallel and/or outside the path of insertion may result in loss of retention. As described in this case report, alignment devices can be used as a mandibular overdenture retainer to diminish the lack of parallelism between two implants. The treatment plan involved the use of an alignment device on each implant to ensure correct alignment among ball attachments and its retentive component. These devices can be used to fabricate overdentures retained by implants that are misaligned by as much as 14 degrees.


Many plants rely on animal mutualists for reproduction. Quantifying how animal mutualists impact plant performance provides a foundation for modelling how change in animal communities affects the composition and functioning of plant communities. We performed a meta-analysis of 2539 experiments, 6 times more than the last comprehensive meta-analysis, examining how gut passage by frugivores influences seed germination. We simultaneously analyzed multiple predictor variables related to study methodology, location, and frugivore identity to disentangle methodological from ecological impacts on effect sizes. We found that gut passage by birds, fish, reptiles, bats, primates, and other mammals on average increased seed germination, but that the magnitude varied across vertebrate groups. The positive effects of gut passage were largely explained by the de-inhibitory effects of pulp removal rather than by the scarification of seed tissues. Some previous studies and meta-analyses that found no effect of gut passage only tested scarification or did not distinguish between these tests of scarification and pulp removal. We found that, for a typical fleshy-fruited plant species, the lack of gut passage reduces germination by 60%. From an evolutionary perspective, this indicates a large risk associated with reliance on animal mutualists that is balanced against the benefits of animal-mediated seed dispersal. From a conservation perspective, this highlights the potential for large demographic consequences of frugivore declines on plant populations. Our database and findings advance quantitative predictions for the role of fruit-frugivore interactions in shaping plant communities in the Anthropocene.


Autonomous grasping of household objects is one of the major skills that an intelligent service robot necessarily has to provide in order to interact with the environment. In this paper, we propose a grasping strategy for known objects, comprising an off-line, box-based grasp generation technique on 3D shape representations. The complete system is able to robustly detect an object and estimate its pose, flexibly generate grasp hypotheses from the assigned model and perform such hypotheses using visual servoing. We will present experiments implemented on the humanoid platform ARMAR-III.


BACKGROUND Aging effects, such as facial flatness, increased tissue laxity, and soft tissue descent and deflation, contribute to midface deficiency. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether large gel particle hyaluronic acid with lidocaine (LGP-HAL) is more effective in the treatment of midface deficiencies than no treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS Subjects with mild to substantial loss of midface fullness were randomized 3:1 to LGP-HAL (Restylane Lyft; Galderma Laboratories, L.P., Fort Worth, TX) or no treatment. Treatment success was defined as at least 1-grade improvement in Medicis Midface Volume Scale (MMVS) on each side of the face at 8 weeks as assessed by a blinded evaluator. Secondary efficacy end points included MMVS score, global aesthetic improvement, and subject satisfaction. RESULTS Significantly greater percent of subjects achieved treatment success in the LGP-HAL group compared to no treatment at all time points through Month 12 (p < .001). One year after initial treatment, 85% of subjects still had a global aesthetic improvement assessed by the treating investigator. Subject satisfaction demonstrated that LGP-HAL improved the aesthetic appearance of the midface. Most reported adverse events (80%) were mild in severity. CONCLUSION The LGP-HAL treatment is well tolerated and provides significant improvement up to 12 months for the correction of midface deficiencies.


This paper discusses the advantages of database-backed websites and describes the model for a library website implemented at the University of Nottingham using open source software, PHP and MySQL. As websites continue to grow in size and complexity it becomes increasingly important to introduce automation to help manage them. It is suggested that a database-backed website offers many advantages over one built from static HTML pages. These include a consistency of style and content, the ability to present different views of the same data, devolved editing and enhanced security. The University of Nottingham Library Services website is described and issues surrounding its design, technological implementation and management are explored.


The present study embarked with a supposition that there are similarities (traditional, under-developed, agri-based) between the Punjabi and African cultures, so the gender ideology might have similar patterns, which can be verified through the analysis of oral genres of the respective cultures. From Africa, Nigerian (Yoruba) proverbs are selected to be studied in comparison with Punjabi proverbs, while taking insights from Feminist CDA (Lazar 2005). The study has examined how Punjabi and Yoruba proverbs mirror, produce and conserve gendered ideology and patriarchism. Punjabi proverbs are selected through purposive sampling from 'Our Proverbs' (Shahbaz 2005) and Yoruba examples (with English translations and interpretations) are elicited from a dictionary of Yoruba proverbs (Owomoyela 2005), as well as articles written about gender by native Yoruba researchers. The investigation has uncovered through thematic content analysis that the portrayal of women in both communities is primarily biased, face-threatening and nullifying. Both languages have presented womenfolk mainly as unreliable, insensible, loquacious, insincere, ungrateful, opportunist, materialistic and troublemaking. Men have been depicted for the most part as aggressive, rational, prevailing, and anxious to take risks. This analysis infers that in asymmetrically organised Punjabi and African (Yoruba) communities, proverbs are deliberately sustaining inequality.


This study aims to investigate the factors that affect the success of Vietnam's State-owned enterprises' (SOEs) equitization. Using a unique sample of equitization of unregulated SOEs in Vietnam from January 2010 to April 2016, we find that age, valuation, and gross margin of the SOEs are significant determinants of the success of the equitization. Specifically, in contrast with prior literature, age is found to have a negative impact on the success of the equitization. On the other hand, valuation and gross margin have a positive impact on the success of the equitization.


SUMMARY: NBIA characterizes a class of neurodegenerative diseases that feature a prominent extrapyramidal movement disorder, intellectual deterioration, and a characteristic deposition of iron in the basal ganglia. The diagnosis of NBIA is made on the basis of the combination of representative clinical features along with MR imaging evidence of iron accumulation. In many cases, confirmatory molecular genetic testing is now available as well. A number of new subtypes of NBIA have recently been described, with distinct neuroradiologic and clinical features. This article outlines the known subtypes of NBIA, delineates their clinical and radiographic features, and suggests an algorithm for evaluation.


Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a cancer of the epithelial cells lining the nasopharynx. The incidence of NPC has a distinct geographical distribution, mainly affecting the Chinese population of Southern China. In Malaysia, this cancer is exceptionally prevalent among males. There is a high incidence rate of NPC among the Bidayuh natives in Sarawak, Malaysia. Other than epidemiology reports, there has not been an article describing plausible cancer risk factors contributing to NPC within this native group. Researchers are still trying to understand the reasons the Bidayuh and Southern Chinese are highly susceptible to NPC. This article discusses the risk factors of developing NPC: Epstein-Barr virus infection, genetic predisposition, diet, environmental exposure and tobacco smoking. There is a need to improve the understanding of the role of risk factors to identify new ways to prevent cancer, especially among high-risk groups.