In recent years, oil palm has grown on a major scale as it is a prominent commodity crop that contributes the most to almost every producing country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Nonetheless, existing threats such as the Ganoderma basal stem rot (BSR) disease have been deteriorating the oil palm plantations and suitable actions to overcome the issue are still being investigated. The BSR disease progression in oil palm is being studied using the disease progression through the plant disease triangle idea. This concept looks at all potential elements that could affect the transmission and development of the disease. The elements include pathogenic, with their mode of infection in each studied factor.

This study investigates the ‘day of the week’ effect and the ‘twist of the Monday’ effect for Kuala Lumpur Composite Index for the period May 2000 to June 2006. Our empirical results find support for the Monday effect in that Monday exhibits a negative mean return (−0.09%) and represents the lowest stock returns in a week. The returns on Wednesday are the highest in a week (0.07%), followed by returns on Friday (0.04%). Monday returns were partitioned into positive and negative returns; we found that the Monday effect is clearly visible in a ‘bad news’ environment, but it failed to appear in ‘good news’ environment. This study also found evidence on ‘twist of the Monday’ effect, where returns on Mondays are influenced by previous week's returns and previous Friday's returns. The median return on a Monday following a previous week and a previous Friday with declining returns was −0.21% and −0.26%, respectively. The median return on a Monday following a previous week and a previous Friday with rising returns was 0.02% and 0.13%, respectively. The evidence of negative Monday returns in this period is consistent with the relevant empirical literature.

Previous pandemics have demonstrated short and long-term impacts on healthcare workers’ mental health, causing knock-on effects on patient care and professional functioning. Indeed, the present COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruption in social interactions and working conditions. Malaysia has been under the Recovery Movement Control Order since June 2020; however, with the upsurge of cases, healthcare workers face pressure not only from working in resource-deprived settings but also from the increasing patient load. The primary objective of the present study was to examine the cross-sectional relationship of COVID-19 fear and stress to psychological distress (operationalized as anxiety and depression) in healthcare workers. The present sample included 286 frontline healthcare workers from three hospitals in Selangor, Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires containing sociodemographic and occupational items, the Malay versions of the Coronavirus Stress Measure scale, the Fear of Coronavirus-19 scale, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were distributed via online platforms. Hierarchical multiple regression findings suggest that age, shift work, and COVID-19 stress consistently predicted anxiety and depression among frontline healthcare workers after adjusting for sociodemographic and occupational variables. The present findings suggest that frontline healthcare workers are not only inoculated against COVID-19 itself but also against the psychological sequelae of the pandemic.