Malaysia will be an ageing population by 2030 as the number of those aged 60 years and above has increased drastically from 6.2 percent in 2000 and is expected to reach 13.6 percent by 2030. There are many challenges that will be faced due to the ageing population, one of which is the increasing cost of pensions in the future. In view of that, it is necessary to investigate the effect of actuarial assumptions on pension liabilities under the perspective of ageing. To estimate the pension liabilities, the Projected Unit Credit method is used in the study and commutation functions are employed in the process. Demographic risk and salary risk have been identified as major risks in analyzing pension liabilities in this study. The sensitivity analyses will be conducted in the study to investigate how the pension liabilities will be affected when these major risks changes. This study analyzes nine scenarios under assumptions in the actuarial model, namely age of retirement, rate of mortality and rate of salary growth. The result of this study indicates that the implied mortality experience and salary growth rate assumptions have a significant impact on pension liabilities.
Data steganography is a technique used to hide data, secret message, within another data, cover carrier. It is considered as a part of information security. Audio steganography is a type of data steganography, where the secret message is hidden in audio carrier. This paper proposes an efficient audio steganography method that uses LSB technique. The proposed method enhances steganography performance by exploiting all carrier samples and balancing between hiding capacity and distortion ratio. It suggests an adaptive number of hiding bits for each audio sample depending on the secret message size, the cover carrier size, and the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods
... Show MoreAbstract Study aim: to assess the influence of care burden for children with leukemia on their mothers` psychosocial status. Methodology: A Descriptive study, conducted at two pediatric hospitals in Baghdad city. A purposive sample of (60) mothers was participated in the study after obtaining their consent form. The instrument of the study was used to assess mothers` psychosocial status in addition to their sociodemographic characteristics. The data was processed and statistically analysed by SPSS program version 23. Result: the result of the study showed mothers have (81%) in self esteem, (77%) in psychosocial distress, (80%) for social interaction, and (76%) for social isolation. There were association between mothers` psychosocial status
... Show MoreData steganography is a technique used to hide data, secret message, within another data, cover carrier. It is considered as a part of information security. Audio steganography is a type of data steganography, where the secret message is hidden in audio carrier. This paper proposes an efficient audio steganography method that uses LSB technique. The proposed method enhances steganography performance by exploiting all carrier samples and balancing between hiding capacity and distortion ratio. It suggests an adaptive number of hiding bits for each audio sample depending on the secret message size, the cover carrier size, and the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods
... Show MoreSnS nanobelt thin films were deposited on glass substrates in acidic solution by chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The belt-like morphologies of as-deposited SnS thin films were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman measurements were carried out to confirm the crystal structures and phase purities of SnS nanobelt thin films. The morphologies and phase purities of SnS thin films were influenced greatly by the tin and sulfur precursors. The bandgaps of SnS nanobelts were determined to be 1.39–1.41 eV by UV–vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra. Current-voltage ((I-V)) and current-time ((I-T)) characteristics were studied to demon
... Show MoreCopper doped Zinc oxide and (n-ZnO / p-Si and n-ZnO: Cu / p-Si) thin films thru thickness (400±20) nm were deposited by thermal evaporation technique onto two substrates. The influence of different Cu percentages (1%,3% and 5%) on ZnO thin film besides hetero junction (ZnO / Si) characteristics were investigated, with X-ray diffractions examination supports ZnO films were poly crystal then hexagonal structural per crystallite size increase from (22.34 to 28.09) nm with increasing Cu ratio. The optical properties display exceptional optically absorptive for 5% Cu dopant with reduced for optically gaps since 3.1 toward 2.7 eV. Hall Effect measurements presented with all films prepared pure and doped have n-types conductive, with a ma
... Show MorePolymer electrolytes were prepared using the solution cast technology. Under some conditions, the electrolyte content of polymers was analyzed in constant percent of PVA/PVP (50:50), ethylene carbonate (EC), and propylene carbonate (PC) (1:1) with different proportions of potassium iodide (KI) (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 wt%) and iodine (I2) = 10 wt% of salt. Fourier Transmission Infrared (FTIR) studies confirmed the complex formation of polymer blends. Electrical conductivity was calculated with an impedance analyzer in the frequency range 50 Hz–1MHz and in the temperature range 293–343 K. The highest electrical conductivity value of 5.3 × 10-3 (S/cm) was observed for electrolytes with 50 wt% KI concentration at room
... Show MoreTwitter is becoming an increasingly popular platform used by financial analysts to monitor and forecast financial markets. In this paper we investigate the impact of the sentiments expressed in Twitter on the subsequent market movement, specifically the bitcoin exchange rate. This study is divided into two phases, the first phase is sentiment analysis, and the second phase is correlation and regression. We analyzed tweets associated with the Bitcoin in order to determine if the user’s sentiment contained within those tweets reflects the exchange rate of the currency. The sentiment of users over a 2-month period is classified as having a positive or negative sentiment of the digital currency using the proposed CNN-LSTM
... Show MoreDue to the broad range uses of chromium for industrial purposes, besides its carcinogenic effect, an efficient, cost effective removal method should be obtained. In this study, cow bones as a cheap raw material were utilized to produce active carbon (CBAC) by physiochemical activation, which was characterized using: SEM to investigate surface morphology and BET to estimate the specific surface area. The best surface area of CBAC was 595.9 m2/gm which was prepared at 600 ᵒC activation temperature and impregnation ratio of 1:1.5. CBAC was used in aqueous chromium ions adsorption. The investigated factors and their ranges are: initial concentration (10-50 mg/L), adsorption time (30-300 min), temperature (20-50
... Show MoreThis research aimed to examine the effect of concentration of dyes stuff, contact time, temperature and ratio of adsorbent weight in (gm) to volume of solution in (ml) on the percentage removal. Two dyes were used; direct blue 6 and direct yellow and the adsorbent was the maize cob. Batch experiments were performed by contacting different weights of adsorbent with 50 ml of solution of desired concentration with continuous stirring at various temperatures. The percentage of removal was calculated and the maximum percentage of removal was 80%. And as the concentration of solution, contact time, temperature and the ratio of adsorbent to volume of solution increase the percentage of removal increase.