International University of Malaya-Wales

This study focuses on the mechanism that influence information sharing in the context of power centralization. The study treats power disparity as the independent variable, knowledge integration capability as the mediator, and information sharing as the dependent variable, with the digital technology application as the moderator, forming a theoretical model. Through empirical analysis of data from two-stage surveys of 562 participants from 75 teams, the study finds that power disparity does not directly promote information sharing and instead has a significant negative effect. However, power disparity positively affects knowledge integration capability, which in turn indirectly promotes information sharing. Additionally, digital technology application plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between power disparity and information sharing: on the one hand, digital technology positively moderates the relationship between power disparity and knowledge integration capability, thereby alleviating the negative effect of power disparity on information sharing; on the other hand, digital technology significantly suppresses the direct negative effect of power disparity on information sharing. These findings not only expand the theoretical boundaries of research on power disparity but also provide valuable insights for enterprises on how to promote information sharing and achieve organizational innovation by optimizing knowledge integration capability and strengthening the use of digital technology within centralized power structures.

Power disparity, as an important form of internal team hierarchy, presents a "double-edged sword effect". To reconcile the inconsistent effects and systematically explore the different mechanisms of power disparity, this study constructs a comprehensive theoretical model based on power functionalism and power conflict theory, with team coordination and team conflict as dual mediators, and power legitimacy as moderator. By collecting valid questionnaires from 76 teams across 27 different types of companies in various regions, statistical analysis and hypothesis testing were conducted on the data. The results conclude that power disparity positively influences team innovation performance through the team coordination path and negatively affects it through the team conflict path. However, under the moderating effect of power legitimacy, the negative effect of the team conflict path is suppressed, and the positive effect of the team coordination path is strengthened, thus ensuring that power disparity has a positive effect on team innovation performance. This study provides a useful reference for designing the power hierarchy within enterprises, and offers profound insights into effective organizational structure and decision-making processes.

Immobilized Aspergillus ficuum tannase on amino-functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (A-MWCNT) was assembled through glutaraldehyde-mediated covalent coupling to produce a stable biocatalyst nanocomposite. The effective binding of tannase on the surface of A-MWCNT was evaluated and authenticated by spectroscopic signature signals and morphological differences, before and after enzyme coupling. Both free- and immobilized tannase showed optimal catalytic activities at pH 5.0 and 35 °C, with the immobilized tannase exhibiting enhanced thermostability compared to the soluble enzyme. The immobilized tannase preparation was also found to be reusable up to five cycles, with 66% of initial enzyme activity retained thereafter. The enzyme-carbon nanotube composite preparation allows for bioconversion to be accomplished in a bioreactor with a smaller footprint.

Background In the VUCA era, employee innovation behavior is critical to a enterprise success. In China's high power distance and collectivist culture, employee innovation behavior is often influenced by leadership authority, leading to a division between proactive and reactive innovation behavior, with each having a different effect on innovation performance. Innovation is influenced not only by leadership type but also by leadership mindset. As a unidimensional approach focused on bottom-line profits while neglecting other important factors, leader bottom-line mentality (LBLM) and its effect on employee innovation behavior, especially on proactive and reactive innovation, has yet to be thoroughly explored. Understanding this dual influence can help balance short-term profit goals with long-term innovation development. Methods This study employed a two-stage survey method, conducting a questionnaire survey with employees from 13 innovation-driven enterprises, ultimately collecting 351 valid responses. Using SPSS and MPLUS software, the data were analyzed through reliability and validity tests, confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics, and linear regression to validate the proposed research hypotheses. Results the study finds that LBLM has a significantly negative effect on employee proactive innovation behavior but a positive effect on reactive innovation behavior. Moreover, employees' willingness to take risks mediates the relationship between LBLM and employee innovation behavior. At the same time, intrinsic work values negatively moderate the relationship between LBLM and Willingness to take risks, enhancing proactive innovation behavior and reducing reactive innovation behavior. On the other hand, extrinsic work values positively moderate the relationship, enhancing reactive innovation behavior and reducing proactive innovation behavior. Conclusion As a unidimensional mentality, LBLM has a double-edged effect on employee innovation behavior: it positively predicts reactive innovation behavior while negatively predicting proactive innovation behavior. However, this effect is moderated by work values; intrinsic work values weaken the double-edged effect, whereas extrinsic work values enhance its influence.

The purposes of the paper are as follows: First, explore the impact of executive compensation structure on enterprise research and development (R&D) investment. Second, examining the impact of economic cycle on R&D investment and its effect on the relationship between executive compensation structure and R&D investment in China. Empirical verification is carried out utilizing multiple regression analysis and based on the panel data collected from A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2014. The study delivers findings as follows: The higher the proportion of equity return in total executive compensation, the more executives are motivated to consider the enterprise’s long-term value and thus are motivated to increase enterprise R&D investment. Such a relationship is more significantly observed in state-owned enterprises. R&D investment is countercyclical, and the economic cycle weakens the incentive effect of the executive compensation structure on enterprise R&D investment. This study provides a reference to guide China’s listed companies in preparing executive compensation contracts and improving the corporate governance system and a reference to guide the government in supporting R&D investment projects under the current circumstances.

As the main form of digital trade, cross-border e-commerce plays an important role, allowing China to expand its opening-up and promote the optimal foreign trade structure. It also provides opportunities for Chinese enterprises to develop digital technology. From the perspective of the establishment of China's cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone (CBECPZ), this article uses the multi-period DID method to examine the effects of cross-border e-commerce on enterprise digital technology innovation based on listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2007 to 2020. The CBECPZ dramatically promotes enterprise digital technology innovation. The mechanism test shows that the CBECPZ promotes digital technology innovation by financing constraint alleviation, digital transformation, and producer service industry agglomeration. The heterogeneity test shows that the direct effect is more significant in the enterprises of large-scale, non-state-owned, with high ICT correlation and in areas with strong government resource allocation capabilities. The research findings have important reference value for how to utilize cross-border e-commerce to promote digital technology innovation, and they also provide directional references for other developing countries to develop cross-border e-commerce.

Green tea has garnered widespread interest in the past decades due to its content of health-beneficial polyphenols and catechins, besides reportedly exhibiting activities for the prevention, and possibly treatment, of many modern-life-associated afflictions. Hence, the functional food potential of health-beneficial beverages such as green tea is widely and commercially promoted. Biotransformation of green tea extract using enzymes such as tannase ostensibly enhances its beneficial well-being properties and disease-preventing functionalities. The tannase-treated green tea catechins may exhibit enhanced, amongst others, antioxidant, anti-tumour, anti-wrinkle, anti-inflammatory, anti-obesity and anti-sarcopenia properties compared to native green tea extract. Nonetheless, the health benefits and therapeutic and toxicological effects associated with these compounds, before and after tannase treatment, present a scientific gap for detailed studies. Accordingly, the review surveys the literature from the late twentieth century until the year 2023 related to the aforementioned important aspects. Graphical Abstract

Digital Healthcare services are important to provide support for the citizens to manage their health and wellbeing needs, especially for senior citizens who are above 65 years of age. Effective use of these services could potentially present a lower healthcare cost while enabling the citizens to monitor their own health conditions. With senior citizen population is expected to reach 7.3% in 2023, Malaysia is considered as an ageing country and in the state of Selangor alone, the total population of senior citizen is at 5.6%. Therefore, it is important to investigate senior citizens’ usage of digital healthcare services and how these services can improve their health and wellbeing. The aim of this research is to study the user rate of digital healthcare services among senior citizens living in Selangor. This research will use SELangkah mobile application; a service offered by the State Government of Selangor, as a case study for this research. The methods will be through descriptive data analysis covering the user rate level and the most used features of the application services. It was found that the user rate of senior citizens is at 3.8% and the most used digital services includes SELangkah Saring, Bingkas, Zakat and Selvax. This shows that SELangkah application is an effective platform to execute state government’s initiative and for senior citizens, the most used features include Zakat payment, registration for health screening and vaccination purposes. Nevertheless, the low number of user rates among senior citizens are rather alarming which means a lot more awareness campaign will be the next best step for the service provider to consider.

Zeolite serves as a promising additive for enhancing the hydrophilicity of polymeric membranes, yet its utilization for bolstering the mechanical strength of the membrane remains limited. In this study, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes were modified by incorporating various concentrations of zeolite (0.5–2 wt%) to improve not only their mechanical properties, but also other features for water filtration. Membranes with and without zeolite incorporation were fabricated via a dry–wet phase inversion technique, followed by the application of a series of characterization techniques in order to study their morphological structure, mechanical strength, and hydrophilicity. The membrane filtration performance for each membrane was evaluated based on pure water flux and Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) rejection. Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) images revealed a dense, microvoid-free structure across all of the PVDF membranes, contributing to a high pristine PVDF membrane tensile strength of 14 MPa. The addition of 0.5 wt% zeolite significantly improved the tensile strength up to 19.4 MPa. Additionally, the incorporation of 1 wt% zeolite into PVDF membrane yielded improvements in membrane hydrophilicity (contact angle of 67.84°), pure water flux (63.49% increase), and high BSA rejection (95.76%) compared to pristine PVDF membranes. To further improve the characterization of the zeolite-modified PVDF membranes, the Support Vector Regression (SVR) model was adopted to estimate the molecular weight cut off (MWCO) of the membranes. A coefficient of determination (R²) value of 0.855 was obtained, suggesting that the SVR model predicted the MWCO accurately. The findings of this study showed that the utilization of zeolite is promising in enhancing both the mechanical properties and separation performance of PVDF membranes for application in ultrafiltration processes.

In recent years, HRM has received a lot of traction. Human resource management is essential for all types of enterprises. The bulk of research indicates that HRM and organizational performance have a positive link. Each organization's main goal is to attain high levels of performance in its goals and objectives. In this paper, HRM and practices were investigated. What part do human resources play in achieving organizational objectives? This survey will also evaluate HRM practices by analyzing the 40 papers that have been submitted. In addition, this article offers a thorough examination of the chronological assessment based on each publication. In addition, the results of each research paper's analysis are displayed. A review of the literature was utilized to focus on and review the issue knowledge in this study. Finally, it expands on many research concerns that may be useful to researchers in doing more studies on HRM practices.

Multi-epoch very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations measure three-dimensional water maser motions in protostellar outflows, enabling analysis of inclination and velocity. However, these analyses assume that water masers and shock surfaces within outflows are co-propagating. We compare VLBI data on maser-traced bow shocks in the high-mass protostar AFGL 5142-MM1, from seven epochs of archival data from the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA), obtained from 2014 April to 2015 May, and our newly conducted data from the KVN and VERA Array (KaVA), obtained in 2016 March. We find an inconsistency between the expected displacement of the bow shocks and the motions of individual masers. The separation between two opposing bow shocks in AFGL 5142-MM1 was determined to be 337.17 ± 0.07 mas in the KaVA data, which is less than an expected value of 342.1 ± 0.7 mas based on extrapolation of the proper motions of individual maser features measured by VERA. Our measurements imply that the bow shock propagates at a velocity of 24 ± 3 km s−1, while the individual masing gas clumps move at an average velocity of 55 ± 5 km s−1; that is ,the water masers are moving in the outflow direction at double the speed at which the bow shocks are propagating. Our results emphasize that investigations of individual maser features are best approached using short-term high-cadence VLBI monitoring, while long-term monitoring on timescales comparable to the lifetimes of maser features is better suited to tracing the overall evolution of shock surfaces. Observers should be aware that masers and shock surfaces can move relative to each other, and that this can affect the interpretation of protostellar outflows.

This study comprehensively reviews the key influential and intellectual aspects of machine learning in finance. The authors employ the bibliometric approach using VOSviewer software to analyse 189 academic articles from the SCOPUS database between 1988 and December 2022. Our results revealed that machine learning in the finance literature has significantly increased since 2017, indicating that the finance industry had some time to adopt newer technology. The authors find that the United States, China, and the United Kingdom were the countries that most frequently investigated this topic. It was also found that the Steven Institute of Technology (New Jersey, United States) is the most active research institute in this field. We also discovered that the application of machine learning has been adopted in crowdfunding, FinTech, forecasting, bankruptcy prediction, and computational finance. Our research is subject to several limitations. This research only utilised the SCOPUS database and was restricted to articles written in English. Our findings assist academic scholars in exploring issues related to machine learning in finance in future studies. The outcomes of the present study may also guide market participants, particularly FinTech and finance companies, on how machine learning could be used in their decision-making.

Bananas ( Musa spp.), which serves millions of people worldwide, face a serious threat from Fusarium wilt (FW) disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense ( Foc ). Developing disease-resistant varieties particularly through breeding is challenging due to bananas' seedless nature (parthenocarpic). As an alternative, cold plasma (CP) technology, has the potential to be used for crop improvement. Our study demonstrates a favourable impact of CP on the growth performance of banana (Berangan cultivar) in terms of height, leaf number and stem diameter. Plasma treated plants also displayed delayed disease progression as well as lower disease severity indicated by slightly lower value of leaf symptoms index (LSI) and rhizome discoloration index (RDI) compared to controls. Additionally, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis revealed upregulation of several defence ( PR1 , WRKY22 , PAL , CEBiP ) and growth ( Cytochrome P450 , NAC68 , and CAT ) related genes in CP treated plants, particularly in conjunction with Foc infection. These findings shed highlight the potential use of CP in managing FW in banana and offer insights into possible mechanism behind improved traits.

Background Previous cross-sectional studies have shown that meaning in life (MIL) is closely associated with college students’ smartphone addiction (SA), but the causal relationship between MIL and college students’ SA is uncertain. Therefore, conducting a longitudinal study to explore their relationship is very necessary. Furthermore, some studies have implied possible gender differences in the relationship between MIL and SA and the relationship between SA and MIL. Therefore, it is necessary to further examine whether there are gender differences in the above relationships. Methods The present study constructed a three-wave cross-lag panel model to explore the relationships between MIL and college students’ SA. Three waves of data were collected from 705 college students (male: 338; female: 367) in China for three consecutive years, and the interval of data collection was 1 year. These college students completed the same online questionnaire regarding MIL and SA. Results (1) The MIL of male college students was significantly stronger than that of female college students at time 1, time 2, and time 3, (2) Female college students’ SA at time 1, time 2, and time 3 was more serious than that of male college students, (3) There were reciprocal relationships between MIL and college students’ SA, (4) The influence of MIL on female college students’ SA was significantly stronger than that of male college students, and (5) The influence of SA on female college students’ MIL was significantly stronger than that of male college students. Conclusion This study showed reciprocal relationships between MIL and SA among male college students and female college students. The findings further deepen our understanding of the relationship between MIL and SA and provide a gender perspective for preventing or intervening with college students’ SA.

The immobilization of cross-linked tannase onto carboxyl-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT?COOH) was achieved via physical adsorption. Glutaraldehyde was used to cross-link the enzyme molecules. Spectroscopic and morphological characterizations of the enzyme-nanotubes composite were carried out, which authenticated the successful adsorption event. Enzyme composite is proven equal to-, or even superior than free tannase, in terms of catalytic activities and stabilities, when measured under different thermal-, pH-, and recycling conditions. Whilst both free- and immobilized tannase preparations exhibited optimum catalysis at pH 5.0 and 35?C, tannase-nanotubes composite possesses better thermal stability. The immobilized preparation retained 75% of its initial catalytic activity following ten consecutives use. The study demonstrated a facile method to produce catalytically-efficient nanobiocatalyst composite for biotechnological applications.

Previous studies have found that sense of power is an important predictor of employee voice; however, the mechanism underlying the relationship between these factors remains unclear. To explore this mechanism, 642 valid questionnaires from 45 enterprises were used to conduct an empirical test based on the approach–inhibition theory of power. The results showed that sense of power can affect error risk taking positively, error risk taking mediates the relationship between sense of power and employee voice; and power congruence moderates both the direct relationship between sense of power and employee voice and their indirect relationship via error risk taking. This study thus provides a useful reference for improving employees’ enthusiasm for voice behavior and can help enhance the competitiveness of enterprises.

Biological elastomer i.e., medium-chain-length poly-3-hydroxyalkanoate (mcl-PHA) and its graft copolymer were investigated for reactive coating application. They were composited with silver-doped zinc oxide (Ag-ZnO) to produce films with photocatalytic activities. The activities were assessed from the photodegradation efficiencies of methylene blue, Rhodamine B and Orange II dyes. The PHA composite films demonstrated sustained photocatalytic activities over repeated usage compared to neat PHA. The presence of Ag also inhibits microbial growth on the film surface. The composite film exhibited negligible toxicity effect when tested against Ceriodaphnia dubia. Potential and advantages of Ag-ZnO−PHA composite film in reactive coating applications are discussed.

Rapid industrialization and population growth cause severe water pollution and increased water demand. The use of FeCu nanoparticles (nanoFeCu) in treating sewage has been proven to be a space-efficient method. The objective of this work is to develop a recurrent neural network (RNN) model to estimate the performance of immobilized nanoFeCu in sewage treatment, thereby easing the monitoring and forecasting of sewage quality. In this work, sewage data was collected from a local sewage treatment plant. pH, nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia were used as the inputs. One-to-one and three-to-three RNN architectures were developed, optimized, and analyzed. The result showed that the one-to-one model predicted all four inputs with good accuracy, where R2 was found within a range of 0.87 to 0.98. However, the stability of the one-to-one model was not as good as the three-to-three model, as the inputs were chemically and statistically correlated in the later model. The best three-to-three model was developed by a single layer with 10 neurons and an average R2 of 0.91. In conclusion, this research provides data support for designing the neural network prediction model for sewage and provides positive significance for the exploration of smart sewage treatment plants.