This research was conducted to explore the determinants of tax audit efficiency in the Royal Malaysian Customs Department (RMCD) environment. Data collection through a structured survey questionnaire was employed to gather information from a sample of 173 tax auditors in Compliance Division of RMCD. The distributed questionnaires consist of five sections which cover respondent's demographic data, characteristics of the RMCD's tax auditors, clients' attributes (auditees), organizational management of RMCD and tax auditor’s efficiency in RMCD components. Multiple regression analysis was employed to examine the efficiency of tax auditors towards the determinants, which categorized into three different groups: Royal Malaysian Customs Department's (RMCD) tax auditors, the auditees, and the management of RMCD. Three hypotheses were tested in this research and found that only the characteristics of tax auditors and organizational management of tax authority were significant to tax auditors' efficiency. Attributes of auditees on the other hand, were not significant to the tax auditors' efficiency. Based on the findings, RMCD is suggested to provide more attention to the critical factors that lead to their tax auditors' efficiency. The management of RMCD could focus more on providing motivational seminars and training, and the availability of audit resources should always be ready for tax auditors. Additionally, accessible tax information system also could serve as the crucial audit resources for tax auditors to perform tax audit. Hence, a more integrated system is seemed to be helpful to increase the performance and efficiency of tax auditors in the auditing process, while maximising the risk management systems in RMCD.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of annotations in nlultimedia on-screen texts using two presentational modes in enhancing learners comprehension level as well as vocabulary level. The subjects involved are 44 first year Biotechnology students of USIM. The methodology employed is experimental comparison of the performance of two groups of subjects under two different conditions: one using multimedia on-screen text with the annotations of 'text+animation' and the other using multimedia onscreen text with the annotations of 'voice+animation'. The instruments used in this study are the multimedia texts on "transgenesis method' which focuses on the processes involved in the "Protoplast Fusion' as well as the "Agro bacterium mediated transfusion' and a Comprehension Test that assessed the subjects understanding of the reading texts assigned. The neth hod of data analysis used is of descriptive statistics which uses the frequency count of the average (mean) value scores as well as the highest (max) and lowest score (min) in identifying the effectiveness of the multimedia annotations in facilitating the students comprehension level using the two presentational modes. Generally, the overall scores indicate that there is no significance difference in the use of annotations via the two presentational mode - 'text+animation7 and 'voice+animation' as the difference that exist in the scores are small. However, the findings do indicate that the subjects are found to emphasise on the use of their visual sense of modality in facilitating their reading tasks. Subsequently, this has resulted the students that are exposed to the presentational mode of 'text+animation' to do fairly better than the latter group 'voice+animation'. Finally, it is important to highlight here that the annotations (animations) found in the multimedia on-screen text, do to a certain extent, facilitate the students in understanding a science based text due to its ability to build referential connections between the two mental representations in short term memory hence, resulting in better performance in the tasks assigned

This study examines the potential of utilizing equity-based financing by companies in achieving financial sustainability as compared to debt-based financing. To this end, a conceptual framework of equity-based financing over debt-based financing is developed to provide an understanding of the concept of equity-based financing. Subsequently, this study analyses the credit risk exposure between equity and debt for selected sectors in Malaysia. More specifically, a Monte Carlo method is employed to examine the feasibility of the equity-based financing model in fostering the financial sustainability of companies through simulation of equity-based and debt-based financing models from the global financial crisis (GFC) period to the Covid-19 phase. This study finds that equity-based financing can reduce credit risk exposure when returns are tied to the company’s performance. The findings also show that equity-based financing can achieve financial sustainability regardless of any economic events. To conclude, equity-based financing can thus be a viable capital financing option for companies because it can contribute to long-term financial sustainability.

Momentum strategy is applied in the stock market by buying past winners and selling past losers. In this study, the profitability of industry momentum strategy will be explored for Malaysian stock market. The motivation of this study arises from the notion that industry momentum is more significant than individual stocks momentum strategy. We use monthly data of 24 Malaysian industry sector indices from January 2008 to December 2012. The results indicate that industry momentum strategy is profitable in Malaysian market and most of the profit is derived from long position of winners while the losers do not contribute to the profitability of momentum strategy. Also, this study shows that systematic risk, measured by beta, cannot explain the industry momentum strategy in Malaysia. This evidence may suggest that Malaysian market is not weak form efficient as past prices could be utilized by investors to reap abnormal profit following industry momentum strategy.

Shariah compliant equity is a type of security that is permissible in Islam for investment purposes. Classification of Shariah compliant equity includes the process of screening firm’s nature of business and investment activities that are free from the element of riba, gharar and maysir. In Islamic perspective, risk management is highly encouraged. Therefore, investors are expected to accumulate wealth responsibly by applying risk management measures in their investments. In this study, 50 equities have been selected from stocks listed in FBM EMAS KLCI from January 2009 until June 2011. This study intends to enlighten investors in term of constructing optimal portfolio of diversified Shariah compliant equities in Malaysian market by applying Markowitz portfolio selection model. The aim of the model is to maximize portfolio’s return by specifying investor’s tolerable level of risk. Furthermore, this study extended the model with regards to transaction costs in measuring cost effectiveness of portfolio rebalancing. This study will benefit investors in selecting portfolio of Shariah compliant equities which are not only optimal but also cost effective. Results from the study shows that by applying Markowitz model, investor can achieve higher return at fixed level of tolerable risk as compared to naïve investment strategy. While the benefits of portfolio rebalancing outweigh the disadvantage when transaction cost is taken into consideration during portfolio rebalancing. The performance of portfolio by applying Markowitz model outperforms the FBM EMAS KLCI index. With this knowledge, Shariah compliant investors are capable to invest responsibly in managing their wealth. By applying risk management measure, Shariah compliant investor will become more confident investing in Shariah compliant equity portfolio to safeguard and accumulate wealth.

Nowadays, Machine Learning (ML) plays a significant role in the economy, especially in the stock trading strategy. However, there is an inadequate extensive data analysis using various ML methods. Previous findings usually focus on the forecasting stock index or selecting a limited number of stocks with restricted features. Therefore, the contribution of this paper focused on evaluating different supervised learning algorithms, namely Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), on a big dataset from 28 stocks in Bursa Malaysia. By setting their parameter along and using Walk-Forward Analysis (WFA) method, the trading signal was evaluated based on Accuracy Rate, Precision Rate, Recall Rate, and F1 Score. For stock trading strategies in Malaysia in particular, the findings of this study show that SVM has a better performance compared to LR and XGB in time series forecasting. The ML algorithms have values ranging from 53% to 66% for Accuracy Rate (AR), Recall Rate (RR), and F1 Score (F1). In addition, SVM has the highest Precision Rate (PR) of 73% among the ML algorithms.

As the primary operational tool in the Islamic economics system, Islamic banking is assumed to run on the broader perspective of multi-dimensional objectives based on the foundation of shariah principles. This paper explicitly develops a multi-choice goal programming (MCGP) model of an Islamic bank for the optimal allocations of financial resources that satisfy both economic and social goals. The optimization model is verified using data from one of the premier Islamic banks in Malaysia as a sample model in determining the patterns and strategies taken in the allocations of financial resources. The veracity of the model is tested in terms of its ability to meet the specified target goals with minimum total deviations and to project the optimum allocation of asset and liability composition for a one-year time horizon. Results showed that the model could generate optimal financial resources that meet the specified target goals for economic and social objectives. A simulation analysis has been successfully performed to see the impact of changing the priority weight of management goals on the composition of financial resources. Thus, the model would be beneficial to the policymakers at Islamic banks for decision support and planning in view of its ability to incorporate economic and social objectives. Additionally, the proposed MCGP model offers flexibility to decision-makers in setting management target goals in the form of interval values to avoid error estimation of the decision.