The paper gives an overview of current conceptual framework for the credit risk assessment dedicated to banks. The framework utilises the Merton model to estimate the default probabilities of companies that are supposed to be the main borrowers causing a formation of a greater credit risk in banks. By doing this, banks are able to reaffirm the ability of their borrowers in meeting loan commitme...

This article describes the methodology of this bibliography. A search was conducted on the following: (1) bibliographic databases (PubMed, Scopus, and other databases) using search terms that maximize the retrieval of Malaysian publications; (2) Individual journal search of Malaysian healthrelated journals; (3) A targeted search of Google and Google Scholar; (4) Searching of Malaysian instituti...

This paper employs a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model to investigate the monetary policy framework of a small emerging open economy Malaysia, especially how the economy dynamically respond to money, interest rate, exchange rate and foreign shocks. We establish identification conditions to uncover the dynamic effects of monetary policy shocks on various domestic variables. Following...

Selling and consuming street food has a long tradition in urban areas of Asia. While the preparation of food, the appropriation of space, and the sale itself follow certain rules, some of them are informal and not always in line with government regulations. However, even though the street vendors (or hawkers) are practicing their trade in a gray area between formality and informality many hawke...

The study attempts to fill a gap in Malaysian forestry economics, an area relatively less probed compared to the other important primary commodities of Malaysia. The core of the thesis are two econometric studies. The first concerns estimating supply and demand elasticities of the three main Malaysian wood products sawlogs, sawnwood and plywood. Demand is split up into export and home demand to...

Acinetobacter spp. are important nosocomial pathogens, in particular the Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex, which have become a global public health threat due to increasing resistance to carbapenems and almost all other antimicrobial compounds. High rates of resistance have been reported among countries in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia. In this review, we examine the antimicro...

The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak are global hotspots of forest loss and degradation due to timber and oil palm industries; however, the rates and patterns of change have remained poorly measured by conventional field or satellite approaches. Using 30 m resolution optical imagery acquired since 1990, forest cover and logging roads were mapped throughout Malaysian Borneo and Brunei using...

The role of high-density lipoprotein associated paraoxonase (PON) 1 in protection against oxidative stress associated with the development of complications in diabetes mellitus has been reported. Variations in the PON1 gene, 55LM and 192QR have been described in different populations. These variations are known to be risk factors for heart disease, especially the L and R alleles. We have invest...

Cryptosporidium and Giardia are major causes of diarrhoeal diseases of humans worldwide, and are included in the World Health Organisation's 'Neglected Diseases Initiative'. Cryptosporidium and Giardia occur commonly in Malaysian human and non-human populations, but their impact on disease, morbidity and cost of illness is not known. The commonness of contributions from human (STW effluents, in...

The standardized methanol extracts of Phyllanthus amarus and P. urinaria, collected from Malaysia and Indonesia, and their isolated chemical markers, phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin, were evaluated for their effects on the chemotaxis, phagocytosis and chemiluminescence of human phagocytes. All the plant extracts strongly inhibited the migration of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) with the Ma...