This study aims to investigate the effect of soft skills and ethics and value on the employers’ willingness to continue recruiting Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) graduates, together with the moderating effect of knowledge on the relationship between soft skills and the employers’ willingness to continue recruiting UMT graduates. The study’s respondents comprised of 208 employers in Malaysia who responded through an online survey using Google Forms. The survey data was then analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), indicating that soft skills positively affected the employers’ willingness to continue recruiting UMT graduates. Nevertheless, ethics and value were found to be insignificant factors on the employers’ willingness to continue recruiting UMT graduates. It was also revealed that knowledge had the moderating effect on the relationship between soft skills and the employers’ willingness to continue recruiting UMT graduates. Therefore, universities were recommended to invest in soft skills and knowledge education to ensure that graduates met the employers’ professional recruitment standards in areas of expertise.

High convergence level of strategic alignment between business and information technology helps companies enhance operational excellence. This research aims to identify strategic alignment maturity criteria level and their impacts on operational excellence in Jordanian industrial companies. The population of the study consists of all managers at top and middle management and a purposive sample is used to answer questionnaire items. In this survey, 288 valid responses are collected for analysis using SPSS (20) and smart PLS "V. 3". The study reveals that there is a significantly positive impact of strategic alignment maturity criteria (communication, competency-value Measurement, governance, partnership, scope & architecture and skills) on operational excellence. The most maturity criteria have a mid-level of maturity except scope & architecture and competency-value measurement criteria which maintain a low level. Thus, the study concluded that the researched companies have to recognize the business value of information technology (IT) investment and harmonizing IT architecture with business structure.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of firm value on hedging for exchange rates, interest rates and commodity price risks using derivative instruments as well as examining different types of derivative instruments, including forward contract, future contract, option contract, and swap contract, used as hedging instruments to assess their various effects on firm value. The proxy used for the firm value variable is Tobin’s Q, and the ordinary least squares regression is employed for the research method. The study used 348 records from non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange over the period 2015–2018. There are different results. First of all, the use of hedging for exchange rate risk with derivative instruments has a positive and significant effect on firm value. Secondly, the use of hedging for interest rate risk with derivative instruments has a negative but not significant effect on firm value. In addition, the use of hedging for commodity price risk with derivative instruments has a positive but not significant effect on firm value. Moreover, the effects from hedging using derivative contracts in general on firm value does not give results that are different from the use of hedging risk for exchange rates, interest rates and commodity prices with derivative instruments.

The push-off phase is a critical part of initiating movement during walking, and it requires a significant amount of energy. Recent research has shown that the passive use of springs in parallel with the leg can harvest the push-off energy and reduce the total metabolic energy of walking for healthy subjects. In this study, we present the design of a prosthetic leg with a passive-based mechanism to reduce walking energy consumption for above-knee amputees. The mechanism stores energy during the stance phase of the gait cycle and releases it to support the prosthetic leg during locomotion. The known polycentric knee joint 3R36 and the ankle-foot joint ESAR were chosen and adopted for this study. We also utilized a ratchet clutch that connects with a spring and rope from the pylon to the foot which regulates movement and saves energy. Our simulations demonstrate that the spring stores elastic energy from approximately 22% of the gait cycle and reaches its maximum energy storage at approximately 50% of the walking cycle. The energy is then released at approximately 58% of the stride cycle during the push-off phase. The motion of the proposed prosthetic leg for individuals with transfemoral amputations mimics the normal walking pattern of healthy individuals well.

A series of isoxazole derivatives, 3-aryl-5-[5-(4-nitrophenyl)-2-furyl]-2,3-dihydroisoxazoles (5a-j) were synthesized by cyclocondensation reaction between 1-aryl-3-[5-(4-nitrophenyl)-2-furyl]prop-2-en-1-ones (4a-j) and hydroxylamine hydrochloride in presence of sodium acetate in glacial acetic acid at reflux temperature. Formerly, compounds (4a-j) were synthesized by the condensation of 5-(4-nitrophenyl) furan-2-carbaldehyde (3) with various aromatic ketones by using alkali as catalyst. The structures of the synthesized various isoxazole have been characterized by using elemental analysis, Infrared,¹H-NMR spectroscopy and further supported by Mass spectroscopy. All the products have been screened for their in-vitro biological assay like antibacterial activity towards Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains and antifungal activity towards Aspergillus niger at a concentration of 40 µg/ml. It was exposed that the compounds 5a, 5c, 5e, 5f, and 5i showed inspiring antibacterial and antifungal activity compared to the used reference standard.

Using the assumption that the load is evenly distributed in the horizontal direction, the article has given the cable deflection equation as a function that depends only on the horizontal coordinates, the length of the cable and horizontal distance between two supports. This result leads to the construction of a general system of equations to calculate the deflection, tension, and elongation of an elastic single cable resting on two supports with or without high difference, bearing uniformly distributed loads (or evenly distributed at intervals) and load is concentrated at many points. Calculations of examples to compare with results have been performed by other methods.

Flavanol compounds are chalcone derivatives, generally found in hydroxy substituted forms that can act as ligands. Hydroxy-substituted flavonols are found in many plants but in very small amounts. In order to enrich and expand the use of this compound as a ligand, the synthetic methods were carried out through structural variations, one of which was by substitution using chloride and then the compound (2-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-hydroxy-4H-chromene-4-one) was obtained. In this research, the study was conducted using the compound (2-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-hydroxy-4H-chromene-4-one) as a ligand for complex formation with copper (II). From the results of the study, the mole ratio of the ligand with copper (II) metal was 2:1, pH 7.01 with a complex stability time of 15-25 minutes. The complex formed is bright yellow in color and soluble in chloroform. From the characterization of the resulted complex, it was appeared that Cu-flavonol chloride with UV-Vis spectrophotometer showed maximum absorption at wavelengths 273 and 429 indicating the presence of benzoyl and cinnamoyl peaks, with FT-IR showing the wave number 1545cm-1 indicating the presence of Cu=O-Cu bonds and absorption at 682 cm-1 indicating the presence of Cu-O bonds.

Increasing the yield and nutritional value of faba beans is one of the main objectives of the common bean cultivar improvement programs due to its contribution to terminate protein deficiency malnutrition in developing countries and raising the income level of smallholder farmers. In this study, the technological quality of bean seeds from twenty-four genotypes were evaluated (twenty germplasm and four improved cultivars (Misr 1, Giza 429, Giza 716, Giza 843). The results showed a significant diversity in the Egyptian bean germplasm in their quality traits compared to the control cultivars and indicated that the genotypes had a high hydration coefficient that ranged between (98.6-112.4%). While most of the genotypes for cotyledons to hull ratio met the commercial criteria that ranged between (7.41-6.41%). Twenty genotypes had the highest total soluble solids (6.90-11.78%) and were superior to the control cultivars. The seeds chemical composition analysis showed that the genotypes differed in their composition such as protein (26.65 to 30.72 %.), carbohydrate (58.00 to 62.25%), tannin (70.67 to 157.45%), phenols (35.23-51.02 %), and moisture (9.15 to 10.45%).

Experience plays a vital role in the decision-making (DM) process. In this paper simulation, modeling, and analysis of past experience over DM has been done using the Iowa gambling task (IGT). The Human DM process is very complex and difficult to model through computational methods because it is a subjective type of process and varies person-to-person. Therefore, this study is an attempt to simulate a DM model similar to the human DM process. For this collection of real data was done and was provided as input to the developed eight Reinforcement Learning (RL) models. The result shows that the performance of the model based on Prospect Utility (PU) learned with Decay Reinforcement Rule (DRI) and Trial Dependency Choice (TDC) is better as compared to other models. It is observed from the analysis of data and also validated that simulation and models output that the experienced group performs better than inexperienced.

A lack of natural aggregates in the future is unavoidable, which generates issues for building development. For many industries, natural resources constitute a significant source of revenue. As a result, light artificial aggregate is produced to anticipate the decreasing source of natural aggregate. Production of artificial geopolymer aggregates, fly ash from the burning of coal has been proposed. This paper investigates the optimal proportion of epoxy resin and coal fly ash-based synthetic aggregates. The artificial aggregates are produced following specific gravity and compressive strength standards that may be used as a component of lightweight structural concrete (LWC). The production polymer lightweight aggregate (PLA) comes from a combination of coal fly ash and epoxy resin. The results show that PLA 50:50 to PLA 74:26 can be used for 6 hours to make structural concrete with a strength of more than 17 MPa. PLA 80:20 could achieve compressive strength with the range of 7-17 MPa. PLA 84:16 achieves a compressive strength range of 0.35 to 7 MPa and is utilized as a non-structural element. However, the flexural strength values in concrete LWC 70:30 and LWC 80:20 are higher, at 46.1% and 7.63%, respectively.