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The quality of asthma care may be affected if asthma management is overlooked, thus needing frequent clinical audits to identify areas for improvement. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of the process (e.g. documentation of asthma-specific information), the structure (e.g. availability of resources) and the outcome (e.g. proportion of patients prescribed with asthma medications) at a university-based primary care clinic. The associated clinical factors for non-documentation of asthma control at the last visit were also examined.

This retrospective study involved auditing medical records and the pharmacy data system of 433 adult patients with asthma to evaluate 18 quality indicators. The standard target for the indicators of process and structure was 80 percent and the standard target for the indicators of outcome was 100 percent.

All the indicators failed to reach the standard targets. Documentation of asthma-specific information and availability of resources were deficient. The non-documentation of asthma control was significantly associated with presence of acute complaint(s) unrelated to asthma, presence of other issues and number of the documented parameters for asthma control. Although the prescription rates of inhaled reliever and preventer were substandard, they were reasonably high compared to the targets.

In this study, evaluation of the quality of care was limited by absence of asthma register, use of paper-based medical records and restricted practice capacity. Besides, the asthma-specific assessments and management were only audited at one particular time. Furthermore, the findings of this study could not be generalised to other settings that used other methods of record keeping such as patient-held cards and electronic medical records. Future studies should sample asthma patients from a register, evaluate more reliable quality indicators (e.g. over-prescription of short-acting β-2 agonist and underuse of inhaled corticosteroid) and assess asthma management over a duration of time.

This study provides quality information on all aspects of asthma care (process, structure and outcome) which can be a basis for clinical improvement. It is hoped that the study could assist the stakeholders to plan strategies for improvement of the asthma care. A more strategic and reliable system of documentation is needed, such as the use of a simple template or structured form, which should not jeopardise the provision of personalised and comprehensive care. With complete documentation, thorough investigational audits can be continuously performed to determine the quality of asthma care.

This study could provide useful findings to guide healthcare providers in developing a more strategic model of asthma care that can ensure asthma patients to receive a personalised, comprehensive, holistic and continuous care. Through this approach, their physical and psychosocial well-being can be optimised.

Even though our healthcare has advanced, the quality of asthma care is still suboptimal which requires further improvement. However, it could be considered assuring due to high outcome levels of asthma care despite having limited resources and practice capacity.

This study explores the similarities and dissimilarities among master and bachelor students, which impetus on the marketing strategies for private higher education (HE) institutions to have more intake of master students.

The unit of analysis of the present study is the master and bachelor students from the four leading private universities in Malaysia. Based on the extensive literature review and expert opinion, the framework and the structured questionnaire have been conceptualized. A sample of 410 students responded to the structured survey questionnaire, and the question items were adapted from the existing literature.

There are statistically significant differences between master and bachelor students on the dimensions of smart classroom, peer support, patnership and perceived benefits. Interestingly, master students are highly influenced by smart classroom, peer support and perceived benefits, while bachelor students favor patnership.

The present study provides a conceptualized research framework with some new dimensions, which can be used to examine the factors influencing master's and bachelors' students. Further, the differences in the perceptions of the master and bachelor students were tested to study the performance of the private HE institutions.

This study suggests marketing strategies for private HE institutions in developing countries since the masters' intake of students has been declining. Findings of this study will help private universities in developing countries to enhance procedures and formalities of curriculum and functional operating systems to achieve Higher Education Success.

Corruption is a global phenomenon. The 2016 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Report and the 2019 Malaysia National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) Report stated that the government sector most prone to corruption is procurement. The purpose of this study is to explore what drives the government procurement practitioners to commit corruption or uphold integrity. The novelty of this research is it focusses on the human aspect based on a human model which comprises both the physical and non-physical dimensions. It incorporated four theories which are the virtue theory, transaction cost theory (TCT), human governance (HG) philosophy and Al-Ghazali theory of the soul to design the research framework.

This approach to counteract corruption is through the inner “Self” (spirituality) and is not limited or bound to processes, procedures, rules, regulations, systems and structures.

The findings obtained through the phenomenological method suggest that the Inciting Soul is the driver behind corruption. This happens when intellect (‘Aql) becomes submissive to appetition (Shahwa) and self-assertion (Ghadab) resulting in vice characters. In upholding integrity, Soul-at-Peace is the driver where intellect dominates appetition and self-assertion leading to virtue characters. The HG philosophy is what encapsulates the taxonomy of virtue character.

This research concentrates only on understanding why corruption happens among those with authority. Nevertheless, this research did not delve into the inculcation of HG. Therefore, the authors would suggest for future research is to explore techniques to inculcate the ability of an individual to exercise all the necessary inner “Self” functions (to curb corruption) without having intervention from an external authority.

Corruption is a global phenomenon. The 2016 OECD Report and the 2019 Malaysia NACP Report found that procurement is the government sector most prone to corruption.

The novelty of this research is its focus on the human aspect based on the model of a human comprising both the physical and non-physical dimensions. The theoretical framework integrates the virtue theory, TCT, HG philosophy and Al-Ghazali theory of the Soul.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a comparative study of two novels dealing with the life, feats and death of Alexander the Great: the winner of the 2007 Arabic Booker Prize Wahat Al‐Ghoroub (Sunset Oasis) (2007) by Egyptian writer Bahaa Taher and Alexander: The Sands of Ammon (1998), Part II of a trilogy by Italian historian, journalist, novelist and archaeologist Valerio Massimo Manfredi. The paper highlights the similarities and differences between both fictional works as it addresses the different narrative styles, character portrayals and thematic concerns presented in both works.

An analytical reading of the narrative techniques and literary elements of the two novels.

The paper finds that the two works share similarities as far as historical facts, major thematic concerns and character portrayals are concerned.

This is the first comparative study and thorough analysis dealing with the two literary works.

This paper aims to discuss the potential of al-Wasatiyyah (hereafter, AW) value concept for human sustainability (hereafter, HS) values and its applicability to civil service practice (CSP) in Malaysia. AW is a derivative of an Arabic word that means excellent, moderate, just and professional.

This paper explains the potential of AW concept for HS both in epistemological and ontological perspectives with a focus on CSP. It focuses on the AW value concept according to Ibn Miskawaih and its applicability in CSP in Malaysia. Using content analysis and “integration perspective” between AW and contemporary Malaysia CSP practice, several questions were unlocked in this paper. They include the following: what are AW values for HS? What is the standard of value for sustainable CSP in Malaysia? And how HS from AW perspective can generate quality CSP in Malaysia?

It is found that AW can extend and enrich the meaning of value for HS and subsequently the civil service quality in Malaysia. Findings showed that AW can offer a holistic approach through four AW core values. The study also showed that AW is embedded indirectly in Malaysia CSP before it was highlighted under Najib Razak administration. This study suggests continuous emphasis on AW values in three service areas, namely, service requirements (SR), service priorities (SP) and service quality (SQ).

The limitation is to bring the value concept into the HS parameters. HS is indexed by quantitative indicators including economy, health and education achievements, rather than value concept. This study tries to expand the potential and importance of value as an indicator for HS. That is through a concept named as AW.

AW values and approaches are perceived to be a potential focus system for HS and resource building in Malaysian civil service.

Extending the meaning of HS through the application of AW concept is perceived to enrich social values and development.

This paper argues that current discussion on HS is not fit for all purposes because it lacks human great values. This paper subsequently argues AW concept as potential HS values, especially for CSP, in Malaysia.

The objectives of this paper are twofold. Firstly, to examine the importance of Malaysian public procurement objectives and secondly, to investigate the extent to which government suppliers adhere to public procurement principles.

For achieving the objectives, a questionnaire survey was used. A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed to government suppliers involved in the government tendering process. In return, a total of 107 useable questionnaires were received, representing a response rate of 42.8%. Descriptive statistics of the means score, standard deviation and mean score ranking were used to analyse the data.

The results revealed that the most important public procurement objective is “to ensure a continuous supply of material and services to meet the government needs from the best and reliable sources”. On the other hand, the objectives “to expand the local industrial sector by means of transfer of technology and expertise to suit the nation's needs” and “to promote alternative and multiple sourcing through supplier development according to the aspirations and vision of the government” are perceived as not important by the government suppliers. The findings also discovered a moderate level of adherence to Malaysia's public procurement principles, which consist of public accountability, transparency, open and fair competition, fair dealing and value for money. Amongst these principles, the most adhered to is the open and fair competition principle and the least adhered to is the transparency principle.

This study is one of the few studies that assess the government suppliers' perceptions of public procurement in Malaysia. More importantly, this study may give some ideas to various parties concerning the areas in which improvement is required to ensure that equal importance is given to the public procurement objectives and better adherence to the public procurement principles in Malaysia.

Supply chain digitalization (SCD) facilitates a competitive advantage and is equally challenging. A literature analysis reveals that research related to SCD is available, but analysis of key barriers and their interrelations for effective SCD is limited. This paper aims to identify and find out interrelationships among the key barriers affecting SCD in the electronic supply chain (SC).

Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to identify the contextual relationship among the SCD barriers. The model is validated using MICMAC analysis.

The findings of this study have implications at both theoretical and practical levels. The proposed ISM model can help organizations analyze and interpret interrelationships among barriers to SCD. It can lead to better insights and understanding for minimizing the dominant barriers to effective SCD.

This study tries to bridge the gap in identifying and finding the interrelationships among the key barriers to effective SCD in an electronic SC. The result assists practicing managers and academicians in effective decision-making on the SCD process.

This study aims to develop a database of existing academic information in house purchase decision (HPD) using systematic literature review (SLR), to facilitate worldwide advancement of research under HPD domain.

This research examined papers from two reputable databases – Scopus and Google Scholar – from 1992 to 2022 using a scoping review technique (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005) and a theme analysis method. Out of 374, 181 articles fit the inclusion parameters and were evaluated using the theme analysis approach.

Data from 181 articles was evaluated thematically to create a thematic map of HPD research. Five main themes and their sub-themes were identified: consumer behaviour, housing attributes, factors influencing purchasing decisions, investment analysis and demographics, which proved essential in understanding HPD and customer preferences for house purchase.

Data from 181 articles were evaluated thematically to create a thematic map of HPD research. This SLR intends to provide useful new insights on consumer concerns about home purchases in the rapidly developing residential real estate market and the issues that marketers, housing sector stakeholders, real estate industry and existing and future researchers should prioritize.

This research is unique such that it is the only 30-year-long SLR on the subject matter of HPD. This paper makes a significant contribution to residential real estate domain signifying the present state of research in HPD.

Effective cooling is one of the challenges for photovoltaic thermal (PVT) systems to maintain the PV operating temperature. One of the best ways to enhance rate of heat transfer of the PVT system is using advanced working fluids such as nanofluids. The purpose of this research is to develop a numerical model for designing different form of thermal collector systems with different materials. It is concluded that PVT system operated by nanofluid is more effective than water-based PVT system.

In this research, a three-dimensional numerical model of PVT with new baffle-based thermal collector system has been developed and solved using finite element method-based COMSOL Multyphysics software. Water-based different nanofluids (Ag, Cu, Al, etc.), various solid volume fractions up to 3 per cent and variation of inlet temperature (20-40°C) have been applied to obtain high thermal efficiency of this system.

The numerical results show that increasing solid volume fraction increases the thermal performance of PVT system operated by nanofluids, and optimum solid concentration is 2 per cent. The thermal efficiency is enhanced approximately by 7.49, 7.08 and 4.97 per cent for PVT system operated by water/Ag, water/Cu and water/Al nanofluids, respectively, compared to water. The extracted thermal energy from the PVT system decreases by 53.13, 52.69, 42.37 and 38.99 W for water, water/Al, water/Cu and water/Ag nanofluids, respectively, due to each 1°C increase in inlet temperature. The heat transfer rate from heat exchanger to cooling fluid enhances by about 18.43, 27.45 and 31.37 per cent for the PVT system operated by water/Al, water/Cu, water/Ag, respectively, compared to water.

This study is original and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. This is also not currently under review with any other journal.