ANALYZING EMPLOYEE ATTRITION USING DECISION TREE ALGORITHMS

Employee turnover is a serious concern in knowledge based organizations. When employees leave an organization, theycarry with them invaluable tacit knowledge which is often the source of competitive advantage for the business. In order foran organization to continually have a higher competitive advantage over its competition, it should make it a duty to minimizeemployee attrition. This study identifies employee related attributes that contribute to the prediction of employees’ attritionin organizations. Three hundred and nine (309) complete records of employees of one of the Higher Institutions in Nigeriawho worked in and left the institution between 1978 and 2006 were used for the study. The demographic and job relatedrecords of the employee were the main data which were used to classify the employee into some predefined attrition classes.Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA) and See5 for Windows were used to generate decision tree modelsand rule-sets. The results of the decision tree models and rule-sets generated were then used for developing a a predictivemodel that was used to predict new cases of employee attrition. A framework for a software tool that can implement therules generated in this study was also proposed.Keywords: Employee Attrition, Decision Tree Analysis, Data Minin

Enriching the values of micro and small business research projects: co-creation service provision as perceived by academic, business and student

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Studies in Higher Education, first published online 3 September 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2014.942273.The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1996) chaired by Lord Dearing envisioned a university sector central to the UK’s knowledge-based economy. With successive government support the university-business partnership ideology has been put into practice. Widening participation has increased in emphasis over recent years, providing key innovations and skills to support business growth. Yet business schools activities in business growth is marginal against other university schools. The paper reports on an empirical study analyzing the university/business values derived from one small business engagement project. Data collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, memos, and discussions were coupled with critical evaluation of work and action-based learning (ABL) literature. Analysis reveals evidence of multiple value adding factors; it emerged that the existence of knowledge, present or generated through blended learning techniques, was a key value adding element. The findings enabled the construction of a universal process model providing a project framework, detailing areas of collaborative efforts and associated recompenses; this included ease in project advancements and a noticeably advanced project outcome. The study highlights these values in terms of individual and organizational learning, originality and quality of outputs. Given the growing importance of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to the UK economy, understanding the value co-created by collaborative projects in delivering both work-based and ABL for graduates/students, academics and enterprise management is important.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Lack of Mutual Respect in Relationship The Endangered Partner

Violence in a relationship and in a family setting has been an issue of concern to various interest groups and professional organizations. Of particular interest in this article is violence against women in a relationship. While there is an abundance of knowledge on violence against women in general, intimate or partner femicide seems to have received less attention. Unfortunately, the incidence of violence against women, and intimate femicide in particular, has been an issue of concern in the African setting. This article examines the trends of intimate femicide in an African setting in general, and in Botswana in particular. The increase in intimate femicide is an issue of concern, which calls for collective effort to address. This article also examines trends offemicide in Botswana, and the antecedents and the precipitating factors. Some studies have implicated societal and cultural dynamics as playing significant roles in intimate femicide in the African setting. It is believed that the patriarchal nature of most African settings and the ideology of male supremacy have relegated women to a subordinate role. Consequently, respect for women in any relationship with men is lopsided in favor of men and has led to abuse of women, including intimate femicide. Other militating factors in intimate femicide ,are examined and the implications for counseling to assist the endangered female partner are discussed

Beyond Prejudice as Simple Antipathy: Hostile and Benevolent Sexism Across Cultures

The authors argue that complementary hostile and benevolent componen:s of sexism exist ac ro.ss cultures. Male dominance creates hostile sexism (HS). but men's dependence on women fosters benevolent sexism (BS)-subjectively positive attitudes that put women on a pedestal but reinforce their subordination. Research with 15,000 men and women in 19 nations showed that (a) HS and BS are coherenl constructs th at correlate positively across nations, but (b) HS predicts the ascription of negative and BS the ascription of positive traits to women, (c) relative to men, women are more likely to reject HS than BS. especially when overall levels of sexism in a culture are high, and (d) national averages on BS and HS predict gender inequal ity across nations. These results challenge prevailing notions of prejudice as an antipathy in that BS (an affectionate, patronizing ideology) reflects inequality and is a cross-culturally pervasive complement to HS

Second-line agents in myositis: 1-year factorial trial of additional immunosuppression in patients who have partially responded to steroids.

Ciclosporin and MTX are used in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (DM and PM) when patients incompletely respond to glucocorticoids. Their effectiveness is unproved in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). We evaluated their benefits in a placebo-controlled factorial RCT

Caffeine as a tool for investigating the integration of Cdc25 phosphorylation, activity and ubiquitin-dependent degradation in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

The evolutionarily conserved Cdc25 phosphatase is an essential protein that removes inhibitory phosphorylation moieties on the mitotic regulator Cdc2. Together with the Wee1 kinase, a negative regulator of Cdc2 activity, Cdc25 is thus a central regulator of cell cycle progression in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The expression and activity of Cdc25 is dependent on the activity of the Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 (TORC1). TORC1 inhibition leads to the activation of Cdc25 and repression of Wee1, leading to advanced entry into mitosis. Withdrawal of nitrogen leads to rapid Cdc25 degradation via the ubiquitin- dependent degradation pathway by the Pub1 E3- ligase. Caffeine is believed to mediate the override of DNA damage checkpoint signalling, by inhibiting the activity of the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM)/Rad3 homologues. This model remains controversial, as TORC1 appears to be the preferred target of caffeine in vivo. Recent studies suggest that caffeine induces DNA damage checkpoint override by inducing the nuclear accumulation of Cdc25 in S. pombe. Caffeine may thus modulate Cdc25 activity and stability via inhibition of TORC1. A clearer understanding of the mechanisms by which caffeine stabilises Cdc25, may provide novel insights into how TORC1 and DNA damage signalling is integrated

The Impact of Maternal Depression and Parent–Child Interactions on Risk of Parasitic Infections in Early Childhood: A Prospective Cohort in Benin

Objectives: Maternal depression occurs in 13–20% of women from low-income countries, which is associated with negative child health outcomes, including diarrheal disease. However, few studies have investigated its impact on child risk of infectious disease. We studied the impacts of maternal depressive symptoms and parent–child interactions, independently, on the risk of Plasmodium falciparum malaria and soil-transmitted helminth infection in Beninese children. Methods: Our population included mothers and children enrolled in a clinical trial during pregnancy (MiPPAD) in Benin. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) assessed maternal depressive symptoms and the home observation measurement of the environment (HOME) assessed parent–child interactions. Blood and stool sample analyses diagnosed child malaria and helminth infection at 12, 18, and 24 months. Negative binomial and Poisson regression models with robust variance tested associations. Results: Of the 302 mother–child pairs, 39 (12.9%) mothers had depressive symptoms. Median number of malaria episodes per child was 3 (0–14) and 29.1% children had at least one helminth infection. Higher EPDS scores were associated with lower HOME scores; relative risk (RR) 0.97 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.95, 0.99), particularly with lower acceptance, involvement, and variety subscales; RR 0.92 (95% CI 0.85, 0.99), RR 0.82 (95% CI 0.77, 0.88), RR 0.93 (95% CI 0.88, 0.99), respectively. However, neither exposure was associated with risk of parasitic infection in children. Conclusions for Practice: Maternal depressive symptoms are associated with poor parent–child interactions, particularly acceptance of behavior, involvement with children, and variety of interactions, but these exposures do not independently impact risk of parasitic infection in children