SOURCE IN THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF MALAYSIA RELATING TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF BRITISH MALAYA IN BETWEEN 1786-1957

This paper aims at the archival sources from the interval the British administered Malaya ranging from the year 1786 to 1957 kept in the National Archives of Malaysia (NAM). The British Administration records were the biggest and virtually complete collection found in NAM and the most popular among researchers who perform the study relating to social, economic, and political in Malaya from the 18th to 20th century. These records shrouded vast of major historical events that happen in Malaya either before and after independence. During the British Malaya epoch, there are as many as 958 sets of record groups containing as many as 714,634 files and 3,652,691 pieces of attachments preserved in NAM. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the record groups and record descriptions, namely the Selangor State Secretary, the Federal Secretariat, the High Commissioner Office, the Malayan Union, and the British Military Administration. These groups are collections of prime records that shaped the country during the existence of the British administration in Malaya. All metadata of these record groups have been included in the COMPASS System (Computerized Archival System and Services). Although there are various other materials in NAM such as materials during the Portuguese, Dutch, and even Japanese invasions, due to the relatively small amount of material added with language constraints make the materials at that timeless popular among researchers, especially the local researchers.

Using signals from GLONASS/GPS navigation systems to correct the readings of a digital magnetic compass

The article describes the results obtained from research, manufacture and quality improvement of an inexpensive digital magnetic compass system. Given that the receivers of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals are not expensive, in order to increase the accuracy and reliability of the compass, in this paper, the authors propose a method to use the signal of the GNSS global positioning system to compare and adjust the azimuth value of the Digital magnetic compass (DMC).

Rotation invariant visual processing for spatial memory in insects

Visual memory is crucial to navigation in many animals, including insects. Here, we focus on the problem of visual homing, that is, using comparison of the view at a current location with a view stored at the home location to control movement towards home by a novel shortcut. Insects show several visual specializations that appear advantageous for this task, including almost panoramic field of view and ultraviolet light sensitivity, which enhances the salience of the skyline. We discuss several proposals for subsequent processing of the image to obtain the required motion information, focusing on how each might deal with the problem of yaw rotation of the current view relative to the home view. Possible solutions include tagging of views with information from the celestial compass system, using multiple views pointing towards home, or rotation invariant encoding of the view. We illustrate briefly how a well-known shape description method from computer vision, Zernike moments, could provide a compact and rotation invariant representation of sky shapes to enhance visual homing. We discuss the biological plausibility of this solution, and also a fourth strategy, based on observed behaviour of insects, that involves transfer of information from visual memory matching to the compass system.

Sun navigation requires compass neurons in Drosophila

To follow a straight course, animals must maintain a constant heading relative to a fixed, distant landmark, a strategy termed menotaxis. In experiments using a flight simulator, we found that Drosophila adopt arbitrary headings with respect to a simulated sun, and individuals remember their heading preference between successive flights—even over gaps lasting several hours. Imaging experiments revealed that a class of neurons within the central complex, which have been previously shown to act as an internal compass, track the azimuthal motion of a sun stimulus. When these neurons are silenced, flies no longer adopt and maintain arbitrary headings, but instead exhibit frontal phototaxis. Thus, without the compass system, flies lose the ability to execute menotaxis and revert to a simpler, reflexive behavior.One sentence summarySilencing the compass neurons in the central complex of Drosophila eliminates sun navigation but leaves phototaxis intact.