Understanding Perceived Organizational Performance through Human Resource Practices

The aim of this research study is to examine the causal relation of human resource management practices with perceived organizational performance. The study was conducted in Punjab Emergency services (Rescue 1122) of Pakistan. This study provides new insight to HR managers that they can increase the productivity of employees and improve the overall performance of organization. Sample of the study was the different cadres of rescue workers of Punjab Emergency services (Rescue 1122) of Pakistan. Among 384 questionnaires, 324 questionnaires were considered useful for data analysis. Regarding this, response rate was considered 84.38%. In order to examine casual relation of human resource management practices with perceived organizational performance, SEM has been incorporated. The findings of this research study suggested that HR managers now have to consider human resource management practices for achieving competitive advantage in the form of employees capacity building, worker’s commitment with organization and ownership of their responsibilities in Punjab Emergency services (Rescue 1122) of Pakistan. Moreover, relation of perceived organizational performance with other variables like recruitment and selection, training and development, reward and compensation, performance appraisal and employees participation were found positive and significant Keywords: perceived organizational performance, training and development, Rescue 1122, Reward, performance appraisal

Appraisal of Geotechnical Characteristics of Ormara Soil, Baluchistan, Pakistan

Ormara is located 240 km west of Karachi which is a coastal and port city (25° 16' 29N, 64° 35' 10E) ofPakistan. Present study evaluates engineering properties of soils of Ormara for future construction plans and possibleexpansions in the area. Fifty bore holes were done in study area at depths of 20m, 40m and some (10 bore holes) were60m deep. The study area was divided into three major zones i.e. Foot hills, on-shore and off-shore. Groundwater wasencountered at depths of 2.75m on onshore and offshore zones and at 3.65m depth in foothill zone. Laboratory testingi.e. moisture content (12 to 38 %), liquid limit (from 26 to 34), plasticity index (10 to 18) of soil samples indicate thatsoils are low plastic to moderate plastic in nature. Soil samples of granular soils indicate angles of internal friction (ø)varying from 260- 36ºin upper sand layers while 260 to 30º in lower silt layers (encountered after the clay layer) andCohesion ranges 0 to 0.04kg/cm2 in all three zones. Further, unconsolidated undrained triaxial compression tests on aclayey soil sample indicated an undrained cohesion value of 28 kPa. Density values ranges from 1.6 to 2.05gm/cm3.Consolidation (Cv = 0.20 to 0.40 cm2/minute, Cc = 0.149 to 0.17) has been calculated for clay layer. Chemical testscarried out on soil samples indicated that soil and water both are reactive aggressively and may cause corrosion to steeland concrete disintegration

Genetics of drought tolerance at seedling and maturity stages in Zea mays L.

Shortage of irrigation water at critical growth stages of maize is limiting its production worldwide. Breeding drought-tolerant cultivars is one possible solution while identification of potential genotypes is crucial for genetic improvement. To assess genetic variation for seedling-stage drought tolerance, we tested 40 inbred lines in a completely randomized design under glasshouse conditions. From these, two contrasting inbred lines were used to develop six basic generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1F1, BC2F2). These populations were then evaluated in a triplicated factorial randomized complete block design under non-stressed and drought-stressed conditions. For statistical analyses, a nested block design was employed to ignore the replication effects. Significant differences (p≤0.01) were recorded among the genotypes for investigated seedling-traits. Absolute values of fresh root length, fresh root weight, and dry root weight lead to select two genotypes, one tolerant (WFTMS) and one susceptible (Q66). Estimates of heritability, genetic advance, and genotypic correlation coefficients were higher and significant for most of the seedling-traits. Generation variance analysis revealed additive gene action. Narrow-sense heritability [F2 ≥ 65; F∞ ≥ 79] revealed the same results. Generation mean analysis signified additive genetic effects in the inheritance of cob girth, non-additive for plant height, grains per ear row and grain yield per plant, and environmental for ear leaf area, cob length, grain rows per ear, biomass per plant, and 100-grain weight under drought-stressed conditions. For conferring drought-tolerance in maize, breeders can adopt the recombinant breeding strategy to pyramid the desirable genes

Fracture Pattern Analysis of the Upper Cretaceous-Eocene Carbonates along with the Ghumawan Dome, Hazara Basin

Deformational history of the Hazara basin indicates a primitive collision of the two landmasses that undergoes an episodic deformation with NE-SW structural trend. Panjal Thrust (PT) and Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) demarcate the northern and southern extremities of the basin, respectively. The area bounded between these two thrusts is the core consideration of the present research. Different stratigraphic units juxtapose along the Hazara Kashmir Syntaxes (HKS), while the strike-slip component is indicated by imbrication due to thrusts. The study is amied to analyze the paleo-stresses along with developed fracture patterns. Field data were collected via Circle Inventory Method from various localities of the Ghumawan dome, Hazara basin. The zones of upper Cretaceous to Eocene carbonates were mainly targeted during the data collection. Win-Tensor was the key software that helps to analyze the paleo-stresses and fracture pattern of the study area. NW-trending fracture pattern was observed with a highly non-symmetric to dense fracture pattern. The local thrust system lead to severely de-shape the study area. N-S oriented σ1 indicated the compressional tectonic condition that prevailed during deformation of this area. Some segments also show extensional features i.e. normal faulting

Gastroprotective potential and mechanisms of action of Hedera nepalensis

Hedera nepalensis (H. nepalensis) , belonging to the family Araliaceae, is a medicinal plant traditionally used to treat stomach problems. The current study investigated the gastroprotective potential and the mechanism of action of H. nepalensis in diclofenac-and ethanol-induced ulcer models. Anti-oxidant and lipid peroxidation inhibitory prospects of H. nepalensis were checked out by free radical scavenging assay and UV spectrophotometer respectively. Effect of H. nepalensis on the pH, gastric total acidity of gastric juice and protective effects of H. nepalensis against ulcer models have been examined. Histopathological studies have been carried out. The aqueous methanol extract of H. nepalensis (100 µg/mL) showed anti-oxidant (83.55%) and lipid peroxidation inhibitory (70.88%) potential at 1000 µg/mL; the extract had no buffer potential. The extract (400 mg/kg) significantly (81.12% and 63.46%) showed gastroprotective effect in diclofenac and ethanol-induced rat ulcer models respectively. Histopathological studies confirmed the biochemical findings. FTIR analysis showed the presence of carboxylic acid, alkanes, conjugated alkanes, aldehydes and alkyl-aryl ethers. Gallic acid, M-coumaric acid and quercetin were found by HPLC analysis. H. nepalensis exhibited significant protection against diclofenac and ethanol induced gastric damage by anti-oxidant and lipid peroxidation suppression effects suggesting potential broad utility in treatment of diseases characterized with gastric damage

Neogene Kinematics of the Potwar Plateau and the Salt Range, NW Himalayan Front: A Paleostress Inversion and AMS study

We provide new kinematic data from the Potwar Plateau (Pakistan) to evaluate the tectonic evolution of the region during the Neogene. The plateau is bound by two major strike-slip faults in the west and the east, accommodating its southwards translation. We have recognized two Neogene deformation phases in the plateau, based on paleostress inversion and Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS) tensors. The first phase lasted until the early Pliocene and was characterized by vertical minor stress and N-S compression, implying thrust tectonics. The second deformation phase is characterized by a near-vertical intermediate principal stress and near-horizontal major and minor stresses, interpreted to be associated with strike-slip tectonics since the late Pliocene. K-int vectors from 21 sites are relatively compatible with the major principal stress orientations (sigma(1)) and indicate two distinct domains. This is possibly because K-min orientations are related to compaction, whereas K-int orientations were always parallel to tectonic shortening and hence compression direction during both strike-slip (post-late Pliocene) and thrusting (pre-late Pliocene) phases. These phases are characterized by swapping of (sigma(2)) and (sigma(3)) orientations while (sigma(1)) maintained its orientation. The most prominent change occurs at the western part of the Potwar Plateau, where major principal stress directions (sigma(1)) and K-int axes fan out south-westwards. The eastern domain is dominated by NE-SW trending folds and thrust faults, which are absent in the western domain. These structural features are interpreted to be the result of the distribution of deposits of the Neoproterozoic Salt Range Formation as a substratum below the Potwar Plateau. The Salt Range Formation is very thick and widespread in the west area and almost absent in the east. This factor led to unconstrained southwards gliding of the Potwar Plateau over the salt deposits in the west as opposed to frictional sliding and substantial internal deformation in the east

Distributed Analysis and Load Balancing System for Grid Enabled Analysis on Hand-held devices using Multi-Agents Systems

Handheld devices, while growing rapidly, are inherently constrained and lack the capability of executing resource hungry applications. This paper presents the design and implementation of distributed analysis and load-balancing system for hand-held devices using multi-agents system. This system enables low resource mobile handheld devices to act as potential clients for Grid enabled applications and analysis environments. We propose a system, in which mobile agents will transport, schedule, execute and return results for heavy computational jobs submitted by handheld devices. Moreover, in this way, our system provides high throughput computing environment for hand-held devices.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2004

Properties of jet-plated Ni coating on Ti alloy (Ti6Al4V) with laser cleaning pretreatment

The surface mechanical properties of the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) formed Ti6Al4V samples were improved by adopting a novel laser cleaning pretreatment process combined with a jet electrodeposition process. This paper aimed to investigate the effects of different laser powers on the morphologies and adhesions of the nickel coatings. The advantages of the laser cleaning process are no grinding, no contact, high efficiency and environmental protection. The morphologies, adhesion, wear resistance, and hardness of the coatings were characterized. The results indicate that when the laser energy density reached 20% (4 J/cm2), the contaminations on the substrate and the oxide layer were removed and the crystalline grain of the coating was 15.3 nm. The shallow pits generated by laser burning increased the adhesion of the coatings. In addition, when the laser energy density increased to 6 J/cm2, a yellow oxide layer was produced on the surface of the cleaned titanium alloy. Moreover, the wear resistance of the titanium alloy after the nickel plating was improved. The wear volume was only 0.046 mm3, and the hardness increased to 1967.6 N/mm2

Experimental Validation of Microwave Tomographywith the DBIM-TwIST Algorithm for Brain StrokeDetection and Classification

We present an initial experimental validation of a microwave tomography (MWT) prototype for brain stroke detection and classification using the distorted Born iterative method, two-step iterative shrinkage thresholding (DBIM-TwIST) algorithm. The validation study consists of first preparing and characterizing gel phantoms which mimic the structure and the dielectric properties of a simplified brain model with a haemorrhagic or ischemic stroke target. Then, we measure the S-parameters of the phantoms in our experimental prototype and process the scattered signals from 0.5 to 2.5 GHz using the DBIM-TwIST algorithm to estimate the dielectric properties of the reconstruction domain. Ourresultsdemonstratethatweareabletodetectthestroketargetinscenarios where the initial guess of the inverse problem is only an approximation of the true experimental phantom. Moreover, the prototype can differentiate between haemorrhagic and ischemic strokes based on the estimation of their dielectric properties