Resilient Organization Roadmap for Sustained Organization using a Generative Approach: A Case of Landesa Myanmar

The global pandemic and political situation in Myanmar disrupted the country’s economy and put at risk of gradual economic progress. Ongoing programs for the rural communities are facing adversities and Landesa Myanmar is no exception. The reactions of employees and organization are critical for organizational sustainability and employees need to understand the factors governing the resilience and applications of those factors in organizational resiliency. The research was conducted to co-create the roadmap of organizational resiliency by using quick SOAR analysis to discover the strengths of the employees and to explore the shared aspirations of employees. In this study, qualitative method with phenomenology research approach was applied, and data were gathered via structured interviews. Fifteen employees from different level positions were horizontally selected to participate in the research.  Data from interviews were analyzed by using content analysis with three coders consists of the researcher, another coder from outside of the organization and one from the respondents. The MAXQDA 2020 software was also used to double checking the relevancy of the results. The findings show that strengths and aspirations are core elements to achieve resilient organization towards the sustained organization. The components of strengths include three stages of resilience, Employee Engagement, Organizational Commitment and Appreciative Resilience practices of leadership built from AI. The aspirations include future of organization, employees’ contributions, success of organization and difference between now and after crisis. Finally, the roadmap of organizational resilience is generated based on the strengths and aspirations of employees for enhancing organizational resilience and sustainability

Alcohol consumption among adult males in urban area of Thanlyin Township, Yangon Region, Myanmar

Background: Alcohol consumption is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is frequently related to health and behavioural problems as well as socio-economic hardship. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the prevalence and risk factors of alcohol consumption among adult males residing in urban area of Thanlyin Township, Yangon Region.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 380 adult males. Multi-stage random sampling was applied. Data entry and analysis was done using Stata 11.0 statistical package.Results: The prevalence of current alcohol drinking, ex-drinking and never drinking were 20.5%, 9.0% and 70.5%, respectively. There was a significant decreasing trend of alcohol consumption across the levels of age-group. Age, education status and practicing other health-risk behaviours such as smoking and betel chewing were detected as significant risk factors of alcohol consumption. Ever smokers and ever betel chewers were about 4 times more likely to be ever alcohol user compared to their counterparts even if age and education level were adjusted. By controlling smoking and betel chewing habits, 79.2% and 76.6% of existing prevalence of alcohol consumption among respondents would be reduced, respectively.Conclusions: There is an urgent need to curb the habit of alcohol consumption among adult males living in urban area, especially young adults. Alcohol and tobacco control policies in Myanmar should be strengthened or reinforced. Tobacco control program also needs to be intensified. Health education and health promotion activities should be enhanced in order to reduce alcohol consumption in the country.

Age Related Changes in Hematological Values of Myanmar Local Puppies

The hematological parameters were used to monitor the health status and its components also changed according to the ages. However, there were no reports for this issues in Myanmar local dogs. Thus, this study was carried out to investigate the age-related changes on the hematological parameters of local puppies in Myanmar. Ten local puppies with the age of 2-3 month old were used in this experiment, which was lasted for 8 weeks.The daily clinical examinations were conducted throughout the entire experimental period for general health check-up. Haematological parameters (Total WBC count and its differential counts, and RBC, HCT, MCV, HGB, MCH, MCHC and platelets) were measured bi-weekly with Abacus Vet-5 automate haematology analyser. According to the results, the total WBC and eosinophil counts were not significantly different (P>0.05), while lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils and basophils were significantly different (P<0.05) with the aging of experimental animals. The values of RBC, HGB, HCT, MCV, MCH, MCHC and platelets were not significantly different (P>0.05) throughout the experimental periods. Thus, the age-related changes were observed on cell counts of lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, basophils in Myanmar local puppies

Anti-malarial landscape in Myanmar: results from a nationally representative survey among community health workers and the private sector outlets in 2015/2016

Abstract Background In 2015/2016, an ACTwatch outlet survey was implemented to assess the anti-malarial and malaria testing landscape in Myanmar across four domains (Eastern, Central, Coastal, Western regions). Indicators provide an important benchmark to guide Myanmar’s new National Strategic Plan to eliminate malaria by 2030. Methods This was a cross-sectional survey, which employed stratified cluster-random sampling across four regions in Myanmar. A census of community health workers (CHWs) and private outlets with potential to distribute malaria testing and/or treatment was conducted. An audit was completed for all anti-malarials, malaria rapid diagnostic tests. Results A total of 28,664 outlets were approached and 4416 met the screening criteria. The anti-malarial market composition comprised CHWs (41.5%), general retailers (27.9%), itinerant drug vendors (11.8%), pharmacies (10.9%), and private for-profit facilities (7.9%). Availability of different anti-malarials and diagnostic testing among anti-malarial-stocking CHWs was as follows: artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) (81.3%), chloroquine (67.0%), confirmatory malaria test (77.7%). Less than half of the anti-malarial-stocking private sector had first-line treatment in stock: ACT (41.7%) chloroquine (41.8%), and malaria diagnostic testing was rare (15.4%). Oral artemisinin monotherapy (AMT) was available in 27.7% of private sector outlets (Western, 54.1%; Central, 31.4%; Eastern; 25.0%, Coastal; 15.4%). The private-sector anti-malarial market share comprised ACT (44.0%), chloroquine (26.6%), and oral AMT (19.6%). Among CHW the market share was ACT (71.6%), chloroquine (22.3%); oral AMT (3.8%). More than half of CHWs could correctly state the national first-line treatment for uncomplicated falciparum and vivax malaria (59.2 and 56.9%, respectively) compared to the private sector (15.8 and 13.2%, respectively). Indicators on support and engagement were as follows for CHWs: reportedly received training on malaria diagnosis (60.7%) or national malaria treatment guidelines (59.6%), received a supervisory or regulatory visit within 12 months (39.1%), kept records on number of patients tested or treated for malaria (77.3%). These indicators were less than 20% across the private sector. Conclusion CHWs have a strong foundation for achieving malaria goals and their scale-up is merited, however gaps in malaria commodities and supplies must be addressed. Intensified private sector strategies are urgently needed and must be scaled up to improve access and coverage of first-line treatments and malaria diagnosis, and remove oral AMT from the market place. Future policies and interventions on malaria control and elimination in Myanmar should take these findings into consideration across all phases of implementation

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

The Social Organization of Rakkhine National Kin Maw Village, Thandwe Township, Rakkhine State

The national races of the Union of Myanmar reside in our country as Myanmar nationals. Our national leader General Aung San pointed out in his speeches that these national races are inter-dependent on each other. Although this may be the case, the life style, customs and traditions, ideologies and attitudes, depending on their habitat and environment, differ in many ways. The union solidarity is the key factor for prosperity and perpetuation of the nation. It is the duty of Anthropologists to reveal the traditions and customs of the national races in order to help the different races to understand each other's cultural practices in spite of the geographical disparities and differences in cultural traditions. Therefore the aim of this paper is to.- (1) record survey data on the cultural practices of the national races and thus realize the objectives of Anthropology. (2) provide information for the future generations and interested parties to exploit the customs and traditions of national races. (3) to pave the way to a better understanding and smooth relationships among the races from the study of their traditions, taboos etc. It is also aimed at passing on the information to authorities concerned of the needs of the races so that these needs may be fulfilled. Rakkhine natives of Kin Maw village hold their heredity in such high esteem that they would give their lives for the cause. They are especially appreciative of a sound heritage and do not think much of half casts or the mixing of blood. They believe in their tradition. They are pious and acquire enjoyment in religious teachings. Therefore there are DO aliens of a different faith or heritage in Kin Maw village. All villagers are Buddhists. Although there have been instances of such mixing of the blood in neighboring villages such as U yin Byin, Kyaung Daik, Taun Nyo, Let pan So, Kyaing Kaseit and Thayet Maw, natives of KinMaw take great pains to avoid marriages with foreigners or aliens. Furthermore, help and guidance from village elders are assets. Some could experience the folk festivals and ceremonies themselves. Those who do not, could learn about it from village elders. It is remarkable of the natives of Kin Maw to have preserved their culture to the present day. The facts above have been of great assistance in this study on, 'The Social Community of the Rakkhine Natives of KinMawVillage'

Local Aggregation with Modified B+ tree in Map Reduce Data Processing

MapReduce is well-applied in high performancecomputing for large scale data processing. However, aslong as the clusters grow, handling with huge amountof intermediate data produced in the shuffle and reducephases (middle step of Map Reduce) have impactsheavily upon the performance. With local aggregation(either combiners or in-mapper), shuffling largeamounts of data can be reduced which alleviates thereduce straggler problem. The proposed modified B+tree based indexing algorithm is applied to reduceintermediate data amount for output retrieval fast aswell as scalable data storag

Sustainable aquaculture and resource enhancement in Myanmar

Myanmar is located in a rising global fish demand zone for both processing and fish consumption, and has relatively rich land, water and coastal resources, as well as a diversity of agro-climatic conditions. Myanmar has taken its first major step towards developing a sustainable aquaculture industry that will meet domestic nutritional needs and support the fishery export business at a time when wild fish stocks are declining rapidly since 1990. At that time, Myanmar fishery sector has effectively performed for raising aquaculture production capacity in different States and Regions. Recently, freshwater aquaculture is into commercial production of over 20 species and nearly 10 species of indigenous species were successfully done at experimental scale. Most of the Myanmar people live in rural areas and they can easily access fishery resources in their place for daily food needs and create jobs. The aquaculture sector has been performing priority projects towards sustainable management of marine and freshwater fisheries to address overexploitation and climate change impact. Myanmar DOF has initiated projects to ensure food security, food safety, and environment friendly and sustainable development of aquaculture sector through cooperation with local, regional and international organizations. Myanmar aquaculture sector would like to need improve aquaculture value chains, environmental sustainability, and competency of staff. This could be done through application of advanced technology and cooperation with international organizations through research and development programs for seed production in marine finfish

Enhancing NameNode Fault Tolerance in Hadoop Distributed File System

In today’s cloud computing environment, Hadoop is applied for handling huge data, tens of terabytes to petabytes, with commodity hardware (HDFS) for storage and software (MapReduce) for parallel data processing. In Hadoop version 1.0.3, there is a single metadata server called NameNode which stores the entire file system metadata in main memory and most of I/O operations are associated with those credential metadata. Hadoop is out of commission if NameNode is crashed because it works on memory which becomes exhausted due to multiple concurrent accesses [3]. Therefore, NameNode is a single point of failure (SPOF) in Hadoop and it has to tolerate faults. To solve this issue, a proactive predictive solution is proposed for enhancing NameNode fault tolerance. The solution is designed to proactively calculate the predicted time to crash of NameNode due to resource exhaustion by evaluating the use of powerful Back Propagation Algorithm Neural Network. The proposed approach can give prediction accuracy with minimal error compared to the actual result. Therefore, NameNode’s single point of failure can overcome through proposed proactively predicting the time to crash of NameNode caused by memory resource exhaustion