This research aims to study the relationship of export with four determinants, namely import, inflation, foreign direct investment (FDI), and exchange rate. Sample years are 1975 to 2013. Ordinary least square (OLS) is used. Results revealed that import has positive relationship with export. This implied that Malaysia import may be an "assembly point exporter". Electric and electrical (E&E), which is Malaysia major export component has high possibly where inputs are imported, then assembly and exported. Foreign exchange rate (domestic currency in term of foreign) has positive relationship with export, thus validating Marshall Learner hypothesis. Inflation has negative relationship as higher aggregate price increase cost of production and decreasing price competitiveness of export. Foreign direct investment has an inverted-U curve relationship, which give further insight into conflicting evidence of linear relationship between export and FDI. Facilities provided to promote export may attract inflow of foreign investment. However, if FDI is targeted to produce for domestic market, it may not contribute to export growth.

This paper provides the influence of working capital management (WCM) on the performance of public listed wholesale & retail industry and property industry in Malaysia from 2002 to 2011. Regression model is employed by using two measures of companies’ performance namely Return on Assets, ROA (proxy to gauge the firm’s profitability) and Tobin’s Q, TQ (proxy to gauge the firm’s market value) as the dependant variables. WCM components include Current Liabilities to Total Assets Ratio and Current Assets to Total Assets Ratio with three control variables which include of Firm Size (SIZE), Sales Growth (SLGR) and Financial Leverage (LEV) as the independent variables. The results to a very large extent indicate that CATAR and SIZE have significant positive effect on the performance of firm. It suggests that wholesale & retail industry and property industry in Malaysia should pursue unadventurous investment strategy by implementing high altitude of short term investment in order to make profit and create value for their shareholders. It also reveals that the larger the firms are, the more profitable they are; recommending the firms shall expand their business to achieve higher profit and accomplish shareholder wealth maximisation.

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Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) is a traditional medicinal plant used to treat hay fever, inflammation, muscle spasms, menstrual disorders, insomnia ulcers, wounds, gastrointestinal disorders, rheumatic pain, and hemorrhoids. Dried chamomile flowers have a longer shelf life and the dried extract in form of powder offers much flexibility for new therapeutic formulations as it could be used as a replacement for liquid extract and serve as a shelf-stable ingredient in new applications. This study aims to determine the effect of drying methods, i.e., convection oven-drying at 45 °C, freeze-drying at −50°C, and spray-drying at 140°C at 10.5 and 12 ml/min, respectively) on powder yield, physicochemical properties (moisture content, water activity, and color attributes), and total polyphenol content of chamomile extract powder. Our findings showed that spray-drying conducted at 140°C, 12 ml/min resulted in the lowest yield of powder (16.67%) compared to convection oven-drying (90.17%) and freeze-drying (83.24%). Decreasing the feed flow rate to 10.5 ml/min during spraying caused an increase in powder yield to 26.99%. The moisture content of spray-dried chamomile extract powder obtained at 140°C, 10.5 ml/min was higher (11.00%) compared to that of convection oven-dried (8.50%) and freeze-dried (7.50%). Both convection oven-dried and freeze-dried chamomile extract powder displayed no significant difference (p > 0.05) in moisture content. The higher feed flow rate (12 ml/min) in spray-drying also led to an increase in the moisture content of chamomile extract powder to 12.00%. The higher residual moisture found in the spray-dried samples resulted in partial agglomeration of particles. In terms of water activity, freeze-dried chamomile extract powder was found to have the highest water activity (0.63) compared to that of convection oven-dried (0.52), spray-dried at 140°C, 10.5 ml/min (0.57), and spray-dried at 140°C, 12 ml/min (0.58). Spray-dried and freeze-dried chamomile extract powder with high moisture content and water activity could be highly susceptible to microbial growth. In terms of color attributes, higher drying temperature in spray-drying led to darker, redder, and more yellowish chamomile extract powder that could be caused by heat-induced Maillard reaction and caramelization. Since lower drying temperature was used in both convection oven-drying and freeze-drying, both convection oven-dried (56.94 mg GAE/g powder) and freeze-dried chamomile extract powder (55.98 mg GAE/g powder) were found to have higher total polyphenol content compared to those of spray-dried (42.79–46.79 mg GAE/g powder). The present findings allow us to understand the effect of drying methods on the properties of chamomile extract powder and provide a better drying option to dry chamomile extract. Due to higher powder yield with ideal powder properties such as low moisture content and water activity, desirable color, and high total polyphenol content obtained from convection oven-drying, convection oven-drying was a better option than freeze-drying and spray-drying for drying chamomile extract.

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