Microcredit - A More Credible Social than Economic Program in Bangladesh

Calculated under the framework of economic-profit counting, the productivity of microcredit in Bangladesh is found very low. In this survey about 48% of the borrowers had to compromise their normal wages for self-employed labor to be able to pay the high interest for the credit. Similarly its social productivity is also found marginal. However, about 90% of the borrowers felt comfortable with microcredit even at so high interest rate seemingly to avoid losing or compromising their social and political empowerment at the hands of the local moneylenders or relatives. Borrowers give high value to their socio-political empowerments and are ready to compromise normal wages for their self-employed labor. In the game of political economy of credit for the poor, microcredit is seen as a means of protecting and enhancing socio-political empowerments of the low income and distressed people in the society and is appraised as a credible social than economic institution.Grameen Bank, microcredit, microenterprise, subsistent, poverty alleviation, stereotype, empowerment

Green hydrogen production site validation and supply chain simulation and analysis: a case study of Lough Ree power plant

Green hydrogen is generated from electrolyzing water with electricity from renewable sources. Thus, green hydrogen production has no carbon emissions and it releases oxygen and water into the environment. It can be a replacement for fossil fuels and mitigates the energy demand. Although green hydrogen technology is still on a small scale or in the pilot phase, the demand for green hydrogen has grown in recent years. This thesis study will be conducted on a closed coal power plant that is proposed for transformation into a green hydrogen production site to mitigate the hydrogen demand in Ireland. One of the aims of the study is production site validation by comparing selected sites with an Ideal production site model. The ideal site model has been developed from literature and comparison has been performed under location, social, and technical criteria. The result shows that discussed site is valid as a production site except it is far from wind firm, gas, and rail networks. Another aim is to develop various supply chain scenarios and simulate them to measure the performance metric which will help to select the best scenario. The discrete event simulation approach has been used to simulate the scenarios in Anylogistix software. The basic model has one supplier, one producer, five distribution centers, and twenty-six counties as customers. The different scenarios have been generated by varying the distribution centers. The selected performance metric is ELT service level by orders which is measured for high, moderate, and low levels of safety stock. The model is sensitive to demand variation. However, the simulation result shows that the production site is capable to satisfy the demand of midland customers and west-side customers of Ireland. That scenario has performed over 90% of ELT service level by orders for every level of safety stock. Also, they performed well for long-term (3 years) simulation and it is more economical than other scenarios. Overall, the Lough Ree power plant can supply green hydrogen with acceptable ELT service level by orders to the customers of Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Longford, Monaghan, Roscommon, Westmeath, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Offaly, and Sligo counties

Relative Dissatisfaction and Its Impact on Employees’ Intention to Quit

This study aims at showing the factors of relative job dissatisfaction and the influence of those factors on employee intention to quit. The study has conducted a field survey of 143 respondents from different famous private sector companies of Bangladesh. The findings of this study are that most of the factors of relative job dissatisfaction lead to employee intention to quit. Such as:  in the expectation of more pay and better working conditions employees intend to quit the job or organization, similarly employees possess the intention to quit when they want to lessen their workload or to get good supervision. Likewise, employees possess the intention to quit the job or organization in case of getting sound retirement benefits. On the other hand, employees are not found to possess the intention to quit the organization or job in order to get and accept more challenging jobs. The findings of this study will help manager and concerned authorities to be aware about the factors of relative job dissatisfaction of an employee as well as to take care about the factors that lead the employees to possess the intention to quit the organization which is similarly harmful for any organization as the real turnover. Keywords: Relative dissatisfaction, turnover intention, factors, turnover

Detecting wormhole and Byzantine attacks in mobile ad hoc networks

The recent advancements in the wireless technology and their wide-spread utilization have made tremendous enhancements in productivity in the corporate and industrial sectors. However, these recent progresses have also introduced new security vulnerabilities. Since the wireless shared medium is completely exposed to outsiders, it is susceptible to attacks that could target any of the OSI layers in the network stack. For example, jamming of the physical layer, disruption of the medium access control (MAC) layer coordination packets, attacks against the routing infrastructure, targeted attacks on the transport protocol, or even attacks intended to disrupt specific applications. Unfortunately, the effects of applying the security techniques used in wired networks, such as access control and authentication, to wireless and mobile networks have been unsatisfactory due the unique features of such networks. As a result, achieving security goals for mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) has gained significant attention in recent years. Many critical applications of MANET, such as emergency rescue operations, military tactical communication, and business operations like mining and oil drilling platforms, require a friendly and cooperative environment.The aim of this study is to design detection mechanisms for traditional wormhole and Byzantine wormhole attacks by using the topological comparison and round trip time (RTT) measurements. The first step for detecting traditional wormhole attack is that an initiator of the detection process populates its one-hop neighbor list, and also calculates the average round trip time (RTTavg). Meanwhile, a list of suspected neighbors is generated on the basis of RTTavg and RTT. Then, topological information is exchanged between the initiator and all the suspected neighbors to detect the presence of a wormhole link.In this thesis, we also focus on detecting Byzantine wormhole attack in MANET. In the case of detecting such attacks, the initiator creates its one hop neighbor list and calculates the average RTTavg. The initiator also generates a suspected list of its three hop neighbors. In the next phase, the initiator exchanges topological information with all the one hop neighbors to detect the presence of any Byzantine wormhole tunnel. One of the major concerns for the topological comparison based approach is to give the initially suspected nodes a second chance to prove their reliability by exchanging topological information.We have implemented the detection algorithms in ad hoc on demand distance vector (AODV) and optimized link state routing (OLSR) routing protocols. Then, performance evaluation of the proposed detection mechanisms is conducted. We also compared our proposed detection methods with some of the existing detection methods by simulation. The results show that our schemes can achieve better detection performance

Modeling and forecasting population growth of Bangladesh

Information about the population growth of a country is an important issue that helps keeping the gross domestic product at a standard level without accelerating inflation rate. This is the condition demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) for allocating funds for the development of the underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh. The population growth is the main target of Bangladesh government to keep the level of growth at a manageable level. This paper proposes an autoregressive time trend (ARt) model for forecasting population growth of Bangladesh. Using data from 1965 to 2003 and using the proposed ARt model this paper finds a downward population growth for Bangladesh for the extended period up to 2043

Social and Islamic entrepreneurships for social justice: A structural framework for social enterprise economics

Entrepreneurship is indispensable for progress of human civilization and effectively exploring and exploiting existing and potential resources for wellbeing of humanity.Modern economics operates basically through two major modes of entrepreneurships : the market/private sector economics relying on commercial entrepreneurships (self-interest centric) and the state/public sector economics relying on state entrepreneurships (public-well-being centric). However, both individually and jointly, have failed to ensure economics fundamental goal of well-being for human societies.In response, social enterprise economics (third sector), which features cooperatives and not-for-profit social enterprises in the name of foundations, trusts/awqāf, social businesses, and similar undertakings, has emerged as a make-up strategy to meet the minimum unmet requirements for social well-being.However, there is a strongly felt belief that the social enterprise economics needs to be broadened and mainstreamed in order to include entirely charitable institutions, predominantly not-for-profit operations, and predominantly for-profit businesses but blended with social justice via provision of social welfare programs like corporate social responsibility, etc., for its emancipation as a major economic system to be able to play a leading role for ensuring desirable economic growth and development.Islamic entrepreneurship, which is basically a community-centric mode of business initiative, is closely related to social entrepreneurship. It is an antidote to the problem of intolerable economic and social dualism and a natural strategy against all forms of capitalist exploitation to control world resources, like, in the past, through European colonialism, and now, through American-led state terrorism. It is the natural guard against economic inequity, wealth concentration, and social divides.Based on its potential and using examples from Bangladesh and Malaysia, we contend that the Islamic style social entrepreneurship is intellectually and operationally superior and more efficient for effectively widening and mainstreaming community-centric social enterprise economics to ensure development with equity and social justice. The paper aims to put forward social enterprise economics (third sector) for dialogue and research in the context of effective functioning of modern economies ensuring community well-being

Nighttime Light Intensity and Child Health Outcomes in Bangladesh

This study examines the impact of nighttime light intensity on child health outcomes in Bangladesh. We use nighttime light intensity as a proxy measure of urbanization and argue that the higher intensity of nighttime light, the higher is the degree of urbanization, which positively affects child health outcomes. In econometric estimation, we employ a methodology that combines parametric and non-parametric approaches using the Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Bootstrap Aggregating that originate from machine learning algorithms. Based on our benchmark estimates, findings show that one standard deviation increase of nighttime light intensity is associated with a 1.515 rise of Z-score of weight for age after controlling for several control variables. The maximum increase of weight for height and height for age score range from 5.35 to 7.18 units. To further understand our benchmark estimates, generalized additive models also provide a robust positive relationship between nighttime light intensity and children's health outcomes. Finally, we develop an economic model that supports the empirical findings of this study that the marginal effect of urbanization on children's nutritional outcomes is strictly positive.Comment: 44 page

Challenges of implementing electronic government procurement : a case study on Bangladesh water development board

This dissertation report is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Procurement and Supply Management, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis report.Includes bibliographical references (page 74 - 83).Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) solutions make purchasing activities more effective in terms of both time and cost. A large number of procurement articles have appeared in the literature in last 12 years. e-GP is changing the way businesses purchase goods, works and services. Since most products and services are procured using the Internet, the application of e-GP is inevitable in both manufacturing and services. There are limited empirical studies in the literature on the adoption of e-procurement in a country, that is, at the macro-level. Nevertheless, such a study will help companies in other countries to develop policies, strategies, and procedures to implement e-GP. Understanding the importance of such a study, I have conducted a questionnaire-based survey about the adoption of e-GP in Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). The main objective of this study is to identify the perceived critical success factors and perceived barriers regarding the implementation of e-procurement. A conceptual framework has been developed for the adoption of e-GP, and this subsequently has been tested with data collected from BWDB. Also, this study examines the current status of e-GP adoption in BWDB. Finally, a framework is proposed based on the conceptual and empirical analysis for the adoption of e-GP. The results indicate that educating parties in both long- and short-term benefits would encourage the application of e-GP. Some critical success factors include adequate financial support, availability of interoperability and standards with traditional communication systems, top management support and commitment, understanding the priorities of the company, and having suitable security systems.Syed Rafiqul AlamM. Procurement and Supply Managemen

New Business Innovation Ideas are going to Change West to Eastern Countries (China): A Case Study on a Chinese Watch Company

Many European companies are keen to come to China. While in the past, European companies came to China to take advantage of low-cost manufacturing for export, more recently, they have come to enter the Chinese domestic market, establish R&D, engage in cooperative development, take advantage of a skilled work force, establish suppliers, and develop long-term partnerships in China. In order to achieve this, they are often willing to ‘transfer’ their key technology and designs to Chinese subsidiaries of European firms, joint-venture (JV) partners, or Chinese manufacturing and service companies. One of the challenges facing European companies coming to China is devising creative solutions to minimize the risk to their intellectual property (IP) associated with such technology transfers. Keywords: Skagen, design, cost, China, Europe, pestel, economics, innovation.

Factors Determining Job Turnover: A Study on Some Leading Private and Public Sector Companies of Bangladesh

What causes job turnover? Why do some people frequently change their jobs? The answer is, ‘definitely some factors are responsible for this’. This article aimed at identifying the factors which lead to job turnover in Bangladesh. In order to collect data for this study a comprehensive questionnaire was distributed to 150 employees of different private and public organizations in Bangladesh, of them 143 usable responses were received (drop-out rate: 5 percent). The results showed that the main factors for which people quit their jobs were Work load and supervision, Retirement benefits, Administration, Pay and facilities, Job Challenges, Job Availability and performance. The suggestion of this study was that, the organizations experienced excessive rate of job turnover should consider the said factors employee retention and maintenance. Keywords: job turnover, commitment, intention to quit, job dissatisfaction, organization