A Career Guidance Software for Selection of College Majors in Universiti Putra Malaysia

Malaysia university candidates are facing indecisiveness in college major selection in their tertiary education; and thus a career guidance tool is needed to assist them in their college majors’ selection. This research was intended to develop a computer assisted career guidance (CACG) software, which consists of a vocational interest inventory (Putra College Majors Inventory) and a college major finder (Putra College Majors Finder). Putra College Majors Inventory (PCMI) is a vocational interest inventory which consisted of 360 items and was developed based on John Holland’s Theory of Vocational. The process of developing PCMI followed the guideline from Brown (1983), which involved specification of instrument purpose, translating purpose into operational term, develop instrument plan, item writing, item analysis, standardization of scoring, and technical analysis of test. Reliability analysis and content validity were performed to ensure the reliability and validity of PCMI. Putra College Majors Finder (PCMF) consisted of a list of 44 Bachelor Degree programmes of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) where individual programme was assigned with a three-letter environment code. PCMF was developed by assessing the undergraduates’ environment in UPM via Environment Assessment Technique (EAT). A total of 2505 second last semester (2004/2005) undergraduates from all bachelor degree programmes in UPM have been purposively sampled as the sample for this study. Statistical analysis on PCMI yielded an Alpha Cronbach of .98 and content validity index of 8.76 on a ten-point scale. The study shows that the environment profile for UPM is Social (S), Investigative (I) and Artistic (A). The SIA environment profile of UPM is in line with the university’s mission to be a leading Centre of Learning and Research, contributing not only towards human advancement and discovery of knowledge but also to the creation of wealth and nation building. A CACG software was then developed based on data collected from this study. Correlation analysis was performed between the calculated result from computerized PCMI versus the paper and pencil PCMI. The Degree of Correlation was r (335) =1.00, p<0.01 proving that there were no difference found between them

Phase separation and electron pairing in repulsive Hubbard clusters

Exact thermal studies of small (4-site, 5-site and 8-site) Hubbard clusters with local electron repulsion yield intriguing insight into phase separation, charge-spin separation, pseudogaps, condensation, in particular, pairing fluctuations away from half filling (near optimal doping). These exact calculations, carried out in canonical (i.e. for fixed electron number N) and grand canonical (i.e. fixed chemical potential $\mu$) ensembles, monitoring variations in temperature T and magnetic field h, show rich phase diagrams in a T-$\mu$ space consisting of pairing fluctuations and signatures of condensation. These electron pairing instabilities are seen when the onsite Coulomb interaction U is smaller than a critical value U$_c$(T) and they point to a possible electron pairing mechanism. The specific heat, magnetization, charge pairing and spin pairing provide strong support for the existence of competing (paired and unpaired) phases near optimal doping in these clusters as observed in recent experiments in doped La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_{4+y}$ high T$_c$ superconductors.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Electronic structure and parity effects in correlated nanosystems

We discuss the spectral, transport and magnetic properties of quantum nanowires composed of N\leq 13 atoms and containing either even or odd numbers of valence electrons. In our approach we combine Exact Diagonalization and Ab Initio calculations (EDABI method). The analysis is performed as a function of the interatomic distance. The momentum distribution differs drastically for those obtained for even N with those for odd N, whereas the Drude weight evolves smoothly. A role of boundary conditions is stressed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Hepatocellular carcinoma: Review of disease and tumor biomarkers.

© The Author(s) 2016.Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignancy and now the second commonest global cause of cancer death. HCC tumorigenesis is relatively silent and patients experience late symptomatic presentation. As the option for curative treatments is limited to early stage cancers, diagnosis in non-symptomatic individuals is crucial. International guidelines advise regular surveillance of high-risk populations but the current tools lack sufficient sensitivity for early stage tumors on the background of a cirrhotic nodular liver. A number of novel biomarkers have now been suggested in the literature, which may reinforce the current surveillance methods. In addition, recent metabonomic and proteomic discoveries have established specific metabolite expressions in HCC, according to Warburgs phenomenon of altered energy metabolism. With clinical validation, a simple and non-invasive test from the serum or urine may be performed to diagnose HCC, particularly benefiting low resource regions where the burden of HCC is highest

A Maximum Entropy Method of Obtaining Thermodynamic Properties from Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations

We describe a novel method to obtain thermodynamic properties of quantum systems using Baysian Inference -- Maximum Entropy techniques. The method is applicable to energy values sampled at a discrete set of temperatures from Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations. The internal energy and the specific heat of the system are easily obtained as are errorbars on these quantities. The entropy and the free energy are also obtainable. No assumptions as to the specific functional form of the energy are made. The use of a priori information, such as a sum rule on the entropy, is built into the method. As a non-trivial example of the method, we obtain the specific heat of the three-dimensional Periodic Anderson Model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Studies on the Mating Behavior of the House Fly, Musca Domestica L.

Author Institution: Entomology Research Division, Agric, Res. Serv., U.S.D.A. Gainesville, Fla