Vol. 2 No. 2 (2011)

Hanyu Pinyin (Romanised Mandarin) is taught as part of the teaching Mandarin as a third language in UiTM. The time allocated to teach the sound system of Hanyu Pinyin is insufficient for learners. Hence, it is suggested a web-based instruction incorporate into the curriculum as a self-learning material for learners to enable them to manage their learning process in the absence of instructor. The objective of this paper is to describe the process of designing and developing a Hanyu Pinyin WBI to teach non-native learners (Malay Mandarin learners) in learning Mandarin at a Malaysian university (UiTM). The Hanyu Pinyin WBI is tailored to tackle the weaknesses and to meet the specific needs of Malay learners. Hanyu Pinyin WBI is designed on the basis of Instructional System Design (ISD) methodology. This approach involves four phases: (1) analysis and design, (2) development, (3) implementation, and (4) evaluation of the instruction.

The effect of increasing oil incomes on oil exporter countries is the main issues of political economy. Generally and especially about Iran can be recognized this effect in the government spending method, economic structure and behavior of government within the country. Since oil incomes aren’t result of the performance of economic activities, consequently increasing does not show the real economic prosperity. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between oil exports and economic growth in Iran. The data were collected from 1961-2006 and were analyzed using Cointegration, Error Correction Model, and VEC Granger causality/Wald Exogeniety model. The result of the analyses showed that there was significant relationship between oil incomes and economic growth. It showed that increasing in oil price rate lead to increasing in the government costs consequently it affect on the exchange rate and lead to increasing in real exchange rate. Therefore oil incomes are regarded as an important factor in Iran's economic growth.

The trends of organizations are changing and demanding satisfied employees rather than dissatisfied employees. This paper provides factors through which employee’s performance can be increased to achieve organizational goals and objectives. To attract the motivated employees and building relations, CSR can perform for society which will change the thoughts of stakeholders. Quality of work life has impact on organization’s effectiveness which is essential for firms to be healthy and productive. Firms should adopt employee oriented policies which satisfies them to achieve organizational objectives. This study also indicates that effective organizational structure is necessary for improving the performance of employees and the organization. The structure is a source of success or failure because it empowers the employee which will increase the sense of responsibility. For the improvement in the organization and removing stress of the employees management must consider the hygiene factors to motivate the employees. The conceptualized work is conducted which is proved through evidence. For further study statistical analysis can be done for confirmation of the hypothesis.

This paper explores the relation between oil revenues and economic growth in Iran using annual data for the period 1959-2008 to check whether this relation has a structural breakpoint effect. The results indicate the threshold level of growth rate of oil revenues above which oil revenues significantly slows growth is around 22% percent for Iran economy. In contrast, linear estimation without any allowance for threshold effects would misleadingly have us believe that an increase in the oil revenues increase the growth rate. Failure to account for nonlinearities conceal the resource curse in these countries particularly during extreme oil booms as suggested in previous studies.

Thirlwall’s law establishes a relation between the long-run growth rate, the growth of exports and the long-run income elasticity of imports. This paper applies Thirlwall’s basic balance-of-payments constraint growth model to Iranian economic growth for the period of 1971-2007 by using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds Testing approach. The empirical results reveal that import is cointegrated with relative price and income, and the equilibrium growth rates coincide with actual growth rates. However, our estimated findings reveal that the Thirlwall’s law has been rejected in Iran. In other words, balance of payment doesn’t hinder economic growth in this country. The reason may be due to the fact that Iran is a member of OPEC and its oil export plays a significance role in the country’s foreign trade.

This paper aims to prioritize impact factors which affect Thai rural village development. The basic village-leveled information database (NRD-2C) of the Community Development Department (CDD), Ministry of Interior, Thailand, was applied with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to measure the amount of impact for each factor affecting Thai rural village development. According to results, the top 5 impact factors are “Land Possession”, “Electricity”, “Communication”, “Educational Level”, and “Household Industry” with 17.88, 15.35, 14.02, 12.06, and 10.57 score of impact respectively with 95.60 percent of estimated accuracy.