The Third Millennium Secretary And Information & Communication Technology: Nigerian Experience

The academic qualifications, routine duties, role responsibilities, office equipment and personal attributes of traditional secretary form the basics for the study of the third millennium secretary. Although some of the personal and business attributes of the traditional secretary may appear old, some of them are still relevant in the workplace today. For example, both traditional secretary and the third millennium secretary still carry out routine duties of typing, handling telephone calls, etc., but the third millennium secretary carries out management activities which were hitherto reserved for only the executive. The third millennium secretary is better trained, uses modern technology, manages both human and non-human resources more efficiently, and is better at public relations and communication skills

What are the threats and potentials of big data for qualitative research?

Amid the big claims of big data, analytics, datification, and data mining, this article answers central questions for qualitative research. In the debates about the enormity and ubiquity of data in the digital world, qualitative research endeavors are seemingly threatened. But is big data necessarily better? Can big data answer the fundamental questions that qualitative researchers ask? This article interrogates the key issues for qualitative researchers in the big data era, positioning big data in its historical context. This article offers a critique of assumptions about access to big data, and uncovers the dark side of big data and privacy in a risk society. The potentials of big data for qualitative research are examined, providing recommendations to bring together complementary research endeavors that map large scale social patterns using big data with qualitative questions about participants’ subjective perceptions, rich expression of feelings, and reasons for human action

Implementation of Basel II in Microfinance Sector of Pakistan

The Basel, the new accord on banking regulation and supervision covers the risk of capital and credit risk. Basel II covers the additional risk of market which completes the first and second pillars. It includes the disclosure of basic information to its market participants. This information is a sum of risks that institution has to face, capital risk exposure, risk assessment process, capital adequacy of the bank, the techniques to account fall the risks. The aim of the study was to implement Basel II in microfinance sector of Pakistan. The study is unique because it is never analyzed before in microfinance sector of Pakistan. The discussion method was used for results and results of the study shows that new accord will definitely help the managers and practitioners to evaluate the performance of this sector. Keywords: Basel 1, Basel II, Capital Accord, Microfinance, CAR, Operational Risk, Market Risk

Updating democracy studies: outline of a research program

Technologies carry politics since they embed values. It is therefore surprising that mainstream political and legal theory have taken the issue so lightly. Compared to what has been going on over the past few decades in the other branches of practical thought, namely ethics, economics and the law, political theory lags behind. Yet the current emphasis on Internet politics that polarizes the apologists holding the web to overcome the one-to-many architecture of opinion-building in traditional representative democracy, and the critics that warn cyber-optimism entails authoritarian technocracy has acted as a wake up call. This paper sets the problem – “What is it about ICTs, as opposed to previous technical devices, that impact on politics and determine uncertainty about democratic matters?” – into the broad context of practical philosophy, by offering a conceptual map of clusters of micro-problems and concrete examples relating to “e-democracy”. The point is to highlight when and why the hyphen of e-democracy has a conjunctive or a disjunctive function, in respect to stocktaking from past experiences and settled democratic theories. My claim is that there is considerable scope to analyse how and why online politics fails or succeeds. The field needs both further empirical and theoretical work

Studying the emergence of a new social representation: Changes in thinking about nanotechnologies in early 21st-century Italy

We investigated the emergence of a new social representation (SR) of a techno\u2010scientific innovation\u2014nanotechnologies\u2014among the Italian public. We reviewed how nanotechnologies entered parliamentary debates and the media agenda in the early third millennium. We conducted cross\u2010sectional surveys in 2006 (N = 246) and 2011 (N = 486) to examine the emerging SR of nanotechnologies. We sought to observe processes of anchoring and objectification \u2018in action\u2019, by analyzing roles of (i) social groups, and (ii) neighboring SRs of science and of technology, over time. Several changes from 2006 to 2011 were identified: From a \u2018descriptive\u2019 to an \u2018evaluative\u2019 approach; from a \u2018neutral\u2019 to a \u2018controversial\u2019 issue; from a \u2018concrete\u2019 to an \u2018abstract\u2019 object; and from a \u2018technological\u2019 to a \u2018scientific\u2019 phenomenon. We conclude that nanotechnologies finally became \u2018relevant enough\u2019 by 2011 to be considered a proper object of SR, and an emerging SR can be observed

Challenges and Success in Teaching Legal, Ethical, Social and Professional Issues to Computing Undergraduates

This paper discusses issues around the teaching of legal, ethical, social and professional issues (LESPI) to computing undergraduates. The inclusion of the above topics is mandatory for courses which seek accreditation from professional bodies in the UK such as the BCS and the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Coverage of these issues is important to create a generation of engineers who see how their profession impacts society and the responsibilities that society places on them. In the UK and abroad the rise of e-crime and the invasion of privacy have attracted the attention of the media which has brought these issues to the forefront. These issues in the past have been sidelined in core computing curricula. The challenge lies in delivering these topics to students on computing programmes who may not immediately see the relevance despite their higher profile. We will discuss the role professional bodies can play in highlighting these issues and raising the profile of the professional engineer