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The school restrictions caused by pandemics have changed the teaching strategy. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of teaching strategies with the aids of a learning management system on student performance. A fourth-year course called Concurrent Engineering course of Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering at the Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka was selected to demonstrate the merits of the strategies. The course was offered once per year which is only semester 2 every session. For this purpose, a set of the questionnaire was distributed to 33 students after the summative assessment. The teaching effectiveness was measured through course contents, knowledge, attitude, students’ satisfaction that adopted from existing literature. The results of the study were analyzed using descriptive analysis involving mean and standard deviation. Teachers’ attitude is the most influential factor for teaching effectiveness. The highest item in this factor is the teacher has created a teaching and learning environment that stimulates positive learning attitudes of students with a mean of 4.35 and standard deviation of 0.689. The impact of teaching effectiveness can be seen from the results of formative and summative assessments. The results show that the overall performance of students was good with 6.25% students attained grade A-. The performance is better in comparison to the previous session. And indicated that the new teaching strategy does not result in a decrease in student performance below what is normally achieved. The findings of this study show that technology is a must and must be parallel to teachers' attitude cannot be ignored to deliver effective teaching that can stimulate a positive learning environment.

COVID-19 pandemic has been seen to be uncontrollable with some countries suffering several surging waves. This pandemic will continue to threaten many nations in the foreseeable future, particularly the health government, public health systems, socio-economy, and national economy. Different countries use dissimilar containing measures in combating the pandemic. In Malaysia, lockdown has been implemented in different phases, namely, Movement Control Order (MCO), Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), and Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO). Nevertheless, the border control has been loosely adhered with the spiking of cases that leads to several clusters, namely, Sivagangga and Benteng LD clusters. Therefore, the consequences of imported cases in local transmission cannot be neglected. The aim of this study is to apprehend the correlation and relationship between the imported and local occurrences in every MCO phase. Through the correlation analysis, the imported cases have greatly affected the local transmission at the onset of the MCO. From the regression analysis, results showed a positive relationship of the local and imported cases in the MCO phases. Thence, the returnees to Malaysia should be strictly observed and quarantined in avoiding the surging of the COVID-19 cases. The proposed analysis in this work will help us to comprehend the dynamics of COVID-19 in Malaysia, which helps to verify the effectiveness of MCO.

In the biomechanics field, material parameters calibration is significant for finite element (FE) model to ensure a legit estimation of biomechanical response. Determining an appropriate combination of calibration factors is challenging as each constitutive component responds differently. This study proposes a statistical factorial analysis approach using L16(45) orthogonal array to evaluate material nonlinearity and applicable calibration factor of the intervertebral disc FE model in pure moment. The calibrated model exhibits improved agreement to the experimental findings for all directions. Appropriate combination of calibration parameter reduces the estimation gap to the experimental findings, ensuring agreeable biomechanical responses.

Intervertebral disc degeneration involves changes in its material properties that affect the mechanical functions of the spinal system. However, the alteration of the biomechanics of a spinal segment through specific material degradation in a specific region is poorly understood. In this study, the influence of the constitutive material degeneration of disc tissues on the mechanics of a lower lumbar spinal unit was examined using a three-dimensional nonlinear finite element model of the L4-L5 functional spinal unit. Different grades of disc degeneration were simulated by introducing a degeneration factor to the corresponding material properties to represent fibrous nucleus, increased fibre and ground substance laxity, increased fibre stiffness and total annular fracture along posterior and posterolateral regions. The model was loaded with an axial compression of 500 N and pure moments of up to 10 Nm to simulate extension, flexion, lateral bending and axial rotation. To validate the model, the spinal motion and intradiscal pressure of healthy and degenerated discs with existing in vitro data were compared. The disc with a fibrous nucleus and the presence of intradiscal pressure increase the spinal instability during flexion and axial rotation, and the absence of intradiscal pressure increases the spinal instability in all directions. Bulging displacement and shear strains in the disc with total fracture and ground substance laxity are high in all of the loading cases. Our study could provide useful information to enhance our understanding of the influence of each constitutive component of the intervertebral disc on the mechanics of the spinal segment.

The Outcome Based Education (OBE) has been one of the major concern of most academic institutions in Malaysia, especially among engineering departments since the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) has made it compulsory towards programme accreditation. However, various understanding towards the concept of OBE resulted to various attainment to Programme Outcome (PO) based on the Course Outcome (CO). Execution of the OBE may not be an easy matter as the mapping of the CO for each assessment may be mapped to multiple PO. This paper describe the analysis process of the CO and PO attainment for Product Design and Development subject, which is offered to all 2nd year students of Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka. Two methods are incorporated, (1) direct measurement, and(2) segregated measurement. The study identified that segregated measurement are more sensitive towards identifying the issues which affect attainment of CO and PO. Issues related to non-fulfilment of either CO or PO for Product Design and Development subject can be traced to lack of awareness towards product sustainability, synthesizing product design problems and student’s attitude towards citing proper literature information throughout the development of their product.

Paper-based material has been frequently used as part of packaging solution as an option towards reducing municipal solid waste generation. Various studies on mechanical behaviour of paper-pulp packaging material have been conducted based on the machining direction and cross machining direction. However, there is still gap of information on paper-pulp packaging material behaviour at diagonal direction. A study has been conducted to investigate the variability to tensile properties of paper-pulp packaging at various packaging section (draft and base surface) and different specimen orientation (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal direction). In this research, results from the stress-strain relationship obtained from tensile and compression tests are presented. The data obtained are further analysed using ANOVA to find out whether material variations are significantly different with varying sections and orientations. Findings in this research supported the anisotropic properties of paper-based packaging material. Draft surfaces exhibit weaker strength than base surface. Also, the variability of stiffness and strength of specimens are more significant in horizontal and vertical direction compared to diagonal direction.