Employee engagement as a mediator on HRM practices and employee performance relationship of ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh

The ready-made garment industry has made noteworthy contribution to the economy of Bangladesh that convinces the government to flourish its economy through industrialization than agriculture-based initiatives. With regards to this matter, practitioners and academicians are struggling to find the reasons for employees’ high performance. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess the relationship between human resource management practices and employee performance through employee engagement of the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh since the majority of the manufacturing employees are involved in this industry. The study followed the survey method for the collection of data from 392 operational level employees of different garment factories situated at Ashulia in Bangladesh. The data of this study was analyzed using the Partial Least Squares (Structural Equation Modeling) technique. The relationship between the exogenous and the endogenous latent construct was measured through the calculation of beta value, t-value, and p-value. The study revealed that the relationship between human resource management practices and employee performance is statistically significant. Similarly, the relationship between human resource management practices and employee engagement is also significant statistically except the compensation and engagement relationship. Moreover, employee engagement and employee performance relationship is statistically significant. In contrast, employee engagement does not mediate the relationship between compensation and performance, while the other aspects of human resource management practices and employee performance relationships are partially mediated by employee engagement. The findings of this study are expected to assist policy- makers and practitioners in formulating effective measures for the enhancement of employee performance in developing countries like Bangladesh

An Information Theoretic Approach For Feature Selection And Segmentation In Posterior Fossa Tumors

Posterior Fossa (PF) is a type of brain tumor located in or near brain stem and cerebellum. About 55% - 70 % pediatric brain tumors arise in the posterior fossa, compared with only 15% - 20% of adult tumors. For segmenting PF tumors we should have features to study the characteristics of tumors. In literature, different types of texture features such as Fractal Dimension (FD) and Multifractional Brownian Motion (mBm) have been exploited for measuring randomness associated with brain and tumor tissues structures, and the varying appearance of tissues in magnetic resonance images (MRI). For selecting best features techniques such as neural network and boosting methods have been exploited. However, neural network cannot descirbe about the properties of texture features. We explore methods such as information theroetic methods which can perform feature selection based on properties of texture features. The primary contribution of this dissertation is investigating efficacy of different image features such as intensity, fractal texture, and level - set shape in segmentation of PF tumor for pediatric patients. We explore effectiveness of using four different feature selection and three different segmentation techniques respectively to discriminate tumor regions from normal tissue in multimodal brain MRI. Our research suggest that Kullback - Leibler Divergence (KLD) measure for feature ranking and selection and Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm for feature fusion and tumor segmentation offer the best performance for the patient data in this study. To improve segmentation accuracy, we need to consider abnormalities such as cyst, edema and necrosis which surround tumors. In this work, we exploit features which describe properties of cyst and technique which can be used to segment it. To achieve this goal, we extend the two class KLD techniques to multiclass feature selection techniques, so that we can effectively select features for tumor, cyst and non tumor tissues. We compute segemntation accuracy by computing number of pixels segemented to total number of pixels for the best features. For automated process we integrate the inhomoheneity correction, feature selection using KLD and segmentation in an integrated EM framework. To validate results we have used similarity coefficients for computing the robustness of segmented tumor and cyst

Damping of electromechanical oscillations using power system stabilizers

Includes bibliographical references.This thesis deals with the damping of electromechanical oscillations using Power System Stabilizers (PSS). The thesis focuses on three problems associated with the damping of these oscillations, namely the determination of the optimal locations of the PSS, the determination of the best control structure of the PSS and the design of robust PSS. We develop two new methods for determining the optimal locations of the PSS. These two methods are based on Total Modified Coupling Factors (TMC) and optimization by Simulated Annealing (SA). The TMC is a measure of the damping influence of each machine pair on several power system modes. The TMC incorporates the effect of the performance and the type of excitation system of the generator. The method based on TMC is tested on a nine-bus benchmark network. In the method based on SA, we formulate the PSS placement problem as a discrete nonlinear optimization problem. The objective function corresponds to the damping of the electromechanical modes of the system. In this method, the placement is performed simultaneously for all PSS. Using SA, we obtain a placement scheme which guarantees that the undesired poles can be controlled with finite control energy. As a result of the optimization formulation, the method based on SA is computationally more intensive than the method based on TMC. We demonstrate the method based on SA on two networks namely, a seven-bus network and a 35-bus equivalent of the Eskom network. The problem of determining the control structure for damping of the electromechanical oscillations is composed of three aspects namely, the type of feedback, the type of signal and the type of control

Organization of Multi-Agent Systems: An Overview

In complex, open, and heterogeneous environments, agents must be able to reorganize towards the most appropriate organizations to adapt unpredictable environment changes within Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Types of reorganization can be seen from two different levels. The individual agents level (micro-level) in which an agent changes its behaviors and interactions with other agents to adapt its local environment. And the organizational level (macro-level) in which the whole system changes it structure by adding or removing agents. This chapter is dedicated to overview different aspects of what is called MAS Organization including its motivations, paradigms, models, and techniques adopted for statically or dynamically organizing agents in MAS.Comment: 12 page

3D Location of Circular and Spherical Features by Monocular Model-Based Vision

This paper addresses the mathematics for using monocular model-based vision to find the 3-D positions of circular and spherical model features, and, for the circular case, orientations as well. Monocular model-based vision here refers to the use of a single projective image of modeled objects to solve for the 3-D positions and orientations of the objects in the scene. The mathematics for solving 3-dimensional position and orientation of the object from matched model and image points/lines features are well known. However, no known paper addresses spherical features arid very few papers address the mathematics involving circular model features. This paper describes a novel closed-formed solution for the 3-D position and orientation of a circular features and the 3-D position of a spherical feature. The number of solutions for the circular case is found to be two in general, but there is only one solution when the surface normal of the circular feature passes through the center of projection. There is only one solution for the circular case. Advantages of this method are: (1) Handles spherical as well as circular features. (2) Closed-form solution. (3) Gives only the necessary number of solutions (no redundant solutions). (4) Simple mathematics involving 3-D analytic Geometry. (5) Geometrically intuitive

Meningitis in Closed Head Injury 2 Years Experience at Lahore General Hospital

During the time period of January 2006 till December 2007 there were 114300 patients with closed head injuries admitted at The Department of Neurosurgery Lahore General Hospital Lahore. The patients with closed head injury who developed meningitis were 17 and presented with headache, vomiting and neck stiffness. Headache was the commonest symptom. Diagnosis was made with the help of post contrast CT scan brain and CSF examination. Majority of patients admitted with head injury were adults while among patients who developed meningitis predominantly were children. Road traffic accident was the commonest cause of trauma. Majority developed meningitis within 6 weeks of trauma. There was no patient who developed meningitis after 12 weeks. Glasgow coma score at admission was above 8 in most of the patients. All patients were treated with combination of antibiotics for 6 to 12 weeks. Clinically outcome was moderate disability and good recovery in most of the cases. Conclusion:  Meningitis may occur following closed head injury. Its incidence is more in children than in adults. Responsible organism is not commonly identified on CSF examination. Outcome is reasonably good after proper management. Prophylactic antibiotics to all patients with closed head injury are not required

Eight – and - half syndrome: a rare neuro-ophthalmic syndrome “Possible Nine Syndrome”

“Eight-and-half” syndrome is “one-and-a-half” syndrome characterized by conjugated horizontal gaze palsy and internuclearopthalmoplegia plus ipsilateral fascicular seventh nerve palsy. We report a case of 50 year old woman who presented with right eight and half syndrome together with contralateral hemiparesis and hemihypesthesia. Non contrast CT scan brain showed hyperdensesignal on right pontine region. MRI brain plain revealed hemorrhagicpontinetegmentuminfarction as well as corticospinal tract and medial meniscus. This spectrum of presentation suggests a possible “Nine syndrome” as a novel neuropthalmicpontine syndrome. The first of its kind ever reported from Pakista

Drivers of Entrepreneurship: Linking With Economic Growth and Employment Generation (A Panel Data Analysis)

The need for entrepreneurs for economic development has always been crucial in history because they are the leaders who invent innovative ideas that give spark to economic activities. They are responsible for the combination of factors of production by capital formation, creating employment opportunities, wealth distribution that facilitates development and growth. A well explained definition of entrepreneurship in the words of Wennekers and Thurik (1999) that successfully makes the functional roles of entrepreneurs is: “…the manifest ability and willingness of individuals, on their own, in teams within and outside existing organisations, to perceive and create new economic opportunities (new products, new production methods, new organisational schemes and new product-market combinations) and to introduce their ideas in the market, in the face of uncertainty and other obstacles, by making decisions on location, form and the use of resources and institutions.” (46–47) High and sustained economic growth is the fundamental objective of every developed or developing country’s governmental policy. Economic growth is a long term expansion of the productive potential of the economy. It generates employment in the economy and raises the living standards of the nation. Economic growth promotes business activities in private sector, increases company profits and enhances investor confidence