This paper discusses the impact of exchange rates on the export performance of selected ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) economies, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. We construct an empirical model to account for the role of the real exchange rate and other economic fundamentals such as macroeconomic stability, terms of trade, capital goods investment, external demand and human capital. This work also attempts to see if the higher import content industries (such as electronics and textile) are more affected by exchange rate changes than the more resource-based industries (such as wood and rubber). The study makes use of a panel data and estimates export equations using a fixed effect model both at the aggregate and sectoral levels. The findings in this study strongly corroborate results from the theoretical framework that the exchange rate misalignment and variability have significant impact on export performance, both at the aggregate and industry level. This work also gives evidence for the importance of capital goods machinery imports (technology) and the role of human capital. The study also finds that the export growth path for the selected ASEAN economies is dependent on global demand conditions, especially demand from OECD countries. However, there is no evidence to indicate that the exports from high-import content industries are more affected by exchange rate changes than the resource based industries.
Information about current land cover type is essential at a certain level to ensure the optimum use of the land resources. Several approaches can be used to estimate land cover area, where remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) is among the method. Therefore, this study was undertaken to evaluate how reliable these technologies in preparing information about land cover in Carey Island, Selangor of Peninsular Malaysia. Erdas Imagine 9.1 was used in digital image processing. A primary data of Landsat TM, with spatial resolution of 30 m was acquired from scene 127/58 on July 2007. Area estimate was calculated using direct expansion method from samples proportion of each segments of land cover type (1 km by 1 km sample size). In this study, four classes of land cover type have been identified and the areas were oil palm, mangrove, water bodies and urban/bare land area. The area estimate for all classes are 11039.28 ha (oil palm), 5242.86 ha (mangrove), 4894.92 ha (water bodies), and 4751.96 ha (urban/bare land), respectively. The overall classification accuracy obtained for this study is 96%. The results showed that the use of direct expansion method for estimating land cover type area is practical to be used with remote sensing approaches.
Forest road construction for harvest operation are always been subjected to certain constrictions and limitations. Engineering practices on forest road alignment are hindered by costly environmental and operational assessment. GIS tools and related data such as remote sensing allows in allocating suitable access road by taking consideration of environmental and cost implication. The aim of this study is to present the method of integration of remote sensing data and GIS in allocating access road for forest harvesting using best path modeling. Therefore, the specific objectives of this study are to allocate the optimal forest roads network in forest operation, and to determine the density of forest road network. Allocating the best paths for forest road access for timber harvesting is a problem that can be solved by computer based approaches using spatial modeling. Spatial modeling is used to compute the indicative factors that suit road allocation. The model developed and designed using GIS to propose feasibility forest road allocation in the hill area. The method was designed to produce road layouts taking topographical features and forest environmental constraints into special consideration. In this study, four grid themes influencing the road construction were identified; elevation, slope, barrier of lake and distance to existing roads. The total of access road aligned and proposed in the respective area was 28,745.35m. Meanwhile the overall density calculated in selected compartments was about 9.93m/ha (0.80%). The densities of road paths presented here were achieved below as outlined by the forestry department. Thus, there is potential to reduce damage to the residual stand and to the ground area disturbance by the harvesting operation. The forest road alignment and information in this study provides an initial foundation on which GIS can be used for this kind of analysis in forest road planning. The result is not only associated with forest transportation, but at the same time is useful to identify a risk of road construction to the environment. This revealed that the minimum density of forest road construction can help mitigate the loss of ecological services of tropical forest subject to logging pressure and lead to greater financial benefit in future operations.
Change is a perennial buzzword in today's world. In every facet of life that all of us undergo, will constantly and consistently meet the condition of change. When it happens, this chain of action will attract reaction of various multitudes which could either be desirable or undesirable. With every noble intention, change is supposed to improve, enhance and upgrade the aspects of living so that everyone in the organisation will benefit for its very existence. In the educational institution, the members in the organization inevitably face the challenges, be those imposed or designed, must learn to adapt or adopt to meet the demand. Change that takes place within as well as outside the institution can culminate mixed reception and perception among the clients. This paper attempts to explore the issues of integrity and the challenges that educational institution like that of Universiti Teknologi MARA faces in managing change.
For the last few decades, forest road construction for forest harvesting in the tropical forest has been shown to cause considerable damage to the soil physical properties, forest environment and watershed areas. These effects can be minimized through implementation of proper harvesting procedure in the use of harvesting machines and forest road specification guideline. Forest road specification is important as technical guideline that must be comply by any loggers in order to construct forest roads. The road constructions that meet the outlined specification were potential to minimize the damage of forest roads and increase the efficiency in forest product output, while reducing harvesting cost. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of feeder road construction in compliance to the Forest Road Specifications 1999 as outlined by the Forest Department of Peninsular Malaysia. Systematic samplings were conducted along 14.5 km of feeder road where an observation and measurements has been taken at every 500 m points visited. A total of 30 samples were taken which incorporate dimensions of road specification elements for each point such as road cross section, vertical alignment, horizontal alignment, road failure and earth work. The comparison data was collected to determine whether the failure is due or not to the specification. Result presented that the total length of the road failure in the study area was 551.4 m or 3.8% out of 14.5 km. The types of the road failure were classified into five categories that were surface failure, surface run-off, wheel track, drainage failure and landslide. The major failure occurred on the feeder roads was surface failure, which represent about 38.2%. Reasons of non-compliance are ascertained and several recommendations were given to reduce the damage of feeder road.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.