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A total norm of τ-adic non-adjacent form occurring among all element of ℤ(τ): An alternative formula AIP Conference Proceedings 1795, 020002 (2017) Abstract. Bank industry plays a vital role in a country's economic development. In the banking industry, the nonperforming loans which are acknowledged as being undesirable outputs and usually ignored in most of the analysis should be taken into account since they are undesirable by-products of producing loans and may lead to the bank inefficiency. Modelling the efficiency measurement without undesirable outputs can provide misleading results and unfair assessment. The Directional Distance Function (DDF) approach which extended from the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) framework is one of the enhancement efficiency approaches to handle a situation when there is a joint production of the desirable and undesirable outputs. The comparison of both results between the domestic and foreign banks shows that the DEA technical efficiency score for domestic banks is marginally higher than the Malaysian foreign banks. However, when incorporating the undesirable output, the DDF technical efficiency for foreign banks is slightly higher than domestic banks.

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Obesity is becoming an epidemic globally as it has been closely linked with a wide variety of chronic diseases. The identification of associated factors for obesity occurrences is still the main interest of many researchers. However, there has been extensive disagreement among researchers over possible factors associated with obesity which commonly involve the demographic factors, socioeconomic status (SES) and environmental factors. Biomarkers are also considered as important possible factors linked with the prevalence of obesity but investigations looking into their associations are still lacking. Therefore, it is important to examine factors that are associated with obesity using biomarkers and common factors to get detailed perspectives on obesity prevalence. The objectives of this study are to determine the prevalence of obesity and to examine the association between the common factors and biomarkers with obesity among community in Selangor, Malaysia. The results showed that the prevalence of obesity among participants was 49% (N=498) and Ordinal regression model with Cauchit built-in link function was the best fitted model to predict obesity. Meanwhile, three types of common factors (i.e. older age, being female and Malay ethnic) and one type of biomarker (i.e. high glucose level) were found to be significantly associated with obesity.

Abstract. This paper discusses and develops a Two Stage Integrated Chance Constraints Programming for the Employees Provident Fund Malaysia. The main aim is to manage, that is, balance assets and liabilities. Integrated Chance Constraints not only limit the event of underfunding but also the amount of underfunding. This paper includes the numerical illustration.

This research evaluates the equilibrium isotherm models for the adsorption of Methylene Blue (MB) from wastewater by using sawdust red wood and beech wood. The sawdust acts as the low-cost adsorbent by using agriculture by product in order to treat the wastewaters. The objectives for this study are two folds. Firstly, to choose the significant factors (parameters) for the adsorption process. The factors applied in this study are mass of the adsorbent, concentration of the MB solution, pH of the MB solution and contact time between adsorbent and adsorbate. Secondly to determine the best isotherm model on the adsorption process of MB by sawdust. The isotherm models used in this research are Langmuir, Freundlich, Dubinin-Radushkevich and Temkin. Results show that concentration of MB solution is the one and only significant factor for the adsorption process to occur using red wood. Mass of adsorbate, concentration of MB solution and pH of MB solution are the significant factors for the adsorption process to occur using beech wood. The result for the second objective shows that Freundlich is the best model that describe the adsorption process of beech wood as for MB by red wood, Temkin is the best model.

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Purpose: The impact of the Covid-19 outbreak since March 2020 has put Malaysia’s logistics sector in a contrasting reality to other sectors, as during the implementation of the movement control order (MCO), this sector was declared as providing essential service and allowed to operate in order to fulfil customers’ needs. This study aims to assess the efficiency and productivity of the logistics industry in Malaysia before and during the pandemic so that the performance of this industry can be observed.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses secondary data. Yearly records from the annual reports for the period of 2010–2020 were gathered pertaining to 15 Malaysian logistics companies treated as decision making units (DMUs) in this study. The efficiency and productivity of the Malaysian logistics industry during the Covid-19 pandemic have been assessed by using a hybrid DEA model consisting of a combination of epsilon-based measure (EBM) and Malmquist index.Findings: Findings showed that Lingkaran Trans Kota Holdings Berhad was the most efficient and productive logistics company with an average efficiency score of 1 and 12.7% growth in the average productivity index during the study period. In contrast, MISC Berhad obtained the lowest average efficiency score of 0.285. Nevertheless, the average productivity index for MISC Berhad showed an increase by 25.7%. During the early outbreak of Covid-19, Complete Logistics Services Berhad achieved full efficiency and also attained the highest positive growth of 76.2%. Harbour-Link Group Berhad was the least efficient company, scoring an efficiency score of only 0.254 and a decline in productivity growth by 40.8%.Research limitations/implications: The data used in this study may not be sufficient to represent the performance of the entire logistics industry as the pandemic is still not completely over. More useful insights can be obtained if the data can be extended until 2022 to assess the performance of logistics companies after the outbreak of Covid-19 in Malaysia. Many resources that have not been explored in this study and past research may provide an avenue for further research on the performance measurement of logistics companies, particularly in the Malaysian context.Practical implications: This study’s discovery may be used to facilitate the evaluation of resource utilisation and help inefficient logistics companies maximise their efficiency. Also, the findings may be used to help policymakers evaluate the existing policy in order to ensure that logistics companies have sufficient resources to offer reliable and efficient courier services.Originality/value: Although numerous studies have been conducted on the efficiency measurement of logistics companies, so far, scarce research in Malaysia has deployed a quantitative approach to measure the performance of Malaysia’s logistics industry, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study fills this gap by assessing the efficiency and productivity of the logistics industry in Malaysia before and during the pandemic of Covid-19.