Private Sector Management Tools In The Public Sector: Illustrative Evidence Of Literature From Australian Public Sector

Public sector reform processes have brought a wide range of improvements in many areas of public service delivery. This study explores the reforms activities initiated by Australian public sector organizations in the context of new public management ideals. New public management ideals believe that management in the public sector is not different from management in the private sector. Since 1980s the Australian public sector has been dominated by the new public management principles as a response to reform initiatives and eventually different private sector management practices have been introduced in public sector. Literature supports that the Australian public sector organizations have changed their structure and operation in line with the private sector to achieve cost-efficiency, budget accountability and an improved customer focus in service delivery. However, this study doesn’t intent to generalize any findings rather highlights a summary based on available literature. Though the context of the present research is Australia, it may be equally useful to every policy maker who are engaged in formulating new policies for respective public sector. Moreover, the findings reported in this study would be useful to the public sector managers in their day to day decision-making

Conceptualising management control systems. Illustrative evidence from literature on the Australian business sector

This study is an attempt to conceptualise management control systems. Management control systems can be viewed as a broader concept which includes different components and used for varying purposes. In an organisation, control is applied at different levels and is directly related with employees of the organisation concerned. To comprehend the basics of management control systems the present study will explore the typography of the control mechanisms. Management control systems can be viewed as technical activity which is implemented in different ways in different countries. In the Australian business sector these control tools have been widely used. This study will review the experiences of implementing management control systems in the Australian business sector. Though the present study is based on Australian business sector it has policy implications to other countries and is expected to indicate potential usefulness to management control practices

Micro and Macro Dynamics of the Stock Market: An investigation into the Dhaka Stock Exchange DSE)

From a theoretical perspective, based on the Efficient Market Hypothesis, stock prices always should incorporate and reflect all publicly available information (see Fama, 1970). Gergoriou et al. (2009) assert that among asset prices, stock prices are typically closely monitored and are commonly regarded as being highly sensitive to economic policy news. The influence of various macro and non-macroeconomic factors including monetary and fiscal policy variables on the stock markets have been studied rigorously in earlier literature, such as Fama (1981), Pearch and Roley (1985), Chang, (2009) Belo and Yu (2013). Nevertheless, some related issues, such as the investors’ behaviour after the weekend, daily transmission of information across markets, and influence of various macro and non-macroeconomic information on returns, volatility and liquidity, have been ignored or little empirical evidence is available; particularly documentations from emerging and frontier markets are rare. This study therefore selects the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), an emerging equity market and the main exchange of Bangladesh for investigation. We provide firm level evidence by sorting all listed firms on the DSE into size, dividend and sector. This study is an empirical study by nature and followed quantitative approach to carry forward the research process. For the purpose of analysis, we have used secondary data and applied several time-series and panel based econometric methods. Major findings from this study are: First, the market opens from Sunday to Thursday and the ‘information content theory’ works; there is a ‘Sunday effect’ in returns and variance. Supporting the ‘information processing hypothesis’ the study finds that trading patterns of individual investors create the weekend effect and the results are significantly different for size and dividend yield based portfolios. Second, the volatility of the DSE is significantly influenced by the residuals of Japan, Hong Kong, Canada and the US. Investors take regional information from markets in similar time-zones but adjust world factors from the US and Canada at the beginning and end of the week. The multivariate cointegration shows that the DSE is cointegrated with markets from similar time-zone as suggested in Bekaert et al. (2005). Third, timing of breaks in the returns and volatility coincide with the timing of monetary policy, fiscal policy, political uncertainty, government policy, national election and electoral system as suggested in Ardagna (2009) and Chau et al. (2014). The top and bottom 20 percent firms are more sensitive to any information, however smaller firms are significantly affected by monetary policy. Financial and manufacturing sectors are subject to both macro and non-macro news. Fourth, the (il)liquidity of the DSE is significantly caused by the bank rate, government borrowing and private borrowing. The results indicate that there is significant ‘crowding out’ and ‘cost of funds’ effect in the DSE. Finally, the 2008-09 financial crisis had positive impact on market liquidity

Cultural Control Systems in the Context of New Public Management: An In-depth Case Study of an Australian Public Sector Organization

The main purpose of this study is to explore cultural control systems in the context of New Public Management (NPM) initiatives in Australia. A Government Department in the Australian Capital Territory was selected for the investigation. The selected department has adopted NPM initiatives in recent years and demonstrates considerable improvements in performance. This study used qualitative research methods. In this study, data collection involved a triangulation approach and the data sources were organizational documents, interviews and observations. As cultural control systems are socially constructed, Giddens’ structuration theory was adopted in this research to obtain a better understanding of human actions and to explore how these control devices are implicated in the wider social context. The research confirmed that implementation of cultural control systems in the selected organization is the functions of NPM in the key areas of human resources management like code of conduct, duty statement, communication and consultation, workplace diversity, group rewards and recognition etc. These findings are consistent with the view that changes to the Australian public sector promoted a culture of performance.Keywords: Cultural Control Systems, Public Sector Reforms, New Public Management (NPM), Australian Public Sector, Structuration Theory

Compact printed hexagonal ultra wideband monopole antenna with band-notch characteristics

This article presents a compact, printed hexagonal monopole, ultra wideband antenna along with band-notch characteristics. The proposed monopole antenna consists of a printed hexagonal radiating element and a defected ground structure. Printed round-slot geometry and defected ground structure play a vital role in achieving the ultra wide bandwidth. Band-notch characteristics for eliminating the interference arising from the existing WLAN (5.15 – 5.825 GHz) band has been incorporated in the antenna frequency response by the insertion of C-shaped stubs near the feeding segment. The antenna shows a decent gain of ≥ 3.0 dBi throughout the entire bandwidth except at the notched frequency band. Measured results agree well with the simulated values

ESCELL: Emergent Symbolic Cellular Language

We present ESCELL, a method for developing an emergent symbolic language of communication between multiple agents reasoning about cells. We show how agents are able to cooperate and communicate successfully in the form of symbols similar to human language to accomplish a task in the form of a referential game (Lewis' signaling game). In one form of the game, a sender and a receiver observe a set of cells from 5 different cell phenotypes. The sender is told one cell is a target and is allowed to send one symbol to the receiver from a fixed arbitrary vocabulary size. The receiver relies on the information in the symbol to identify the target cell. We train the sender and receiver networks to develop an innate emergent language between themselves to accomplish this task. We observe that the networks are able to successfully identify cells from 5 different phenotypes with an accuracy of 93.2%. We also introduce a new form of the signaling game where the sender is shown one image instead of all the images that the receiver sees. The networks successfully develop an emergent language to get an identification accuracy of 77.8%.Comment: IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (IEEE ISBI 2020

Drivers for internationalisation of SMEs: evidence from an emerging country

Purpose –Internationalisation is considered as a key strategy to grow and survive over longer period of time for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Although internationalisation is a popular strategy both for large and small firms, the decision to enter in a foreign market is not a straight forward story particularly for the small firms. Considering the resource limitation, SMEs need to analyse the key drivers of internationalisation very carefully. The purpose of this paper is to identify these drivers for the SMEs in a developing country. Design/methodology/approach – By using questionnaire survey, this study collected primary data from 212 Bangladeshi SMEs. From sampling point of view, this study used cluster sampling. A mixed method data analysis technique is used to analyse the firms both from micro and macro levels. Based on the survey data, this study has developed and validated partial least square based structural model (PLS-SEM) to assess the key drivers to enter in foreign markets. Findings – This study contributes to extend our knowledge in relation to the drivers of internationalisation in the context of developing countries’ SMEs with particular attention to Bangladesh. To identify the major drivers, this study develops and validates a hierarchical reflective model through PLS based SEM. From the structural analysis, this study proposes 3 major types of drivers related to the internationalisation of SMEs in the context of Bangladesh- Firm specific drivers, industry specific drivers and country specific drivers. While all of these three types of drivers (Firm specific drivers, industry specific drivers and country specific drivers) are significantly related to the overall drivers of internationalisation, firm specific drivers seems most influentia

Three-dimensional deuterium-carbon correlation experiments for high-resolution solid-state MAS NMR spectroscopy of large proteins

Well-resolved 2H-13C correlation spectra, reminiscent of 1H-13C correlations, are obtained for perdeuterated ubiquitin and for perdeuterated outer-membrane protein G (OmpG) from E. coli by exploiting the favorable lifetime of 2H double-quantum (DQ) states. Sufficient signal-to-noise was achieved due to the short deuterium T 1, allowing for high repetition rates and enabling 3D experiments with a 2H-13C transfer step in a reasonable time. Well-resolved 3D 2HDQ-13C-13C correlations of ubiquitin and OmpG were recorded within 3.5days each. An essentially complete assignment of 2HDQα shifts and of a substantial fraction of 2HDQβ shifts were obtained for ubiquitin. In the case of OmpG, 2HDQα and 2HDQβ chemical shifts of a considerable number of threonine, serine and leucine residues were assigned. This approach provides the basis for a general heteronuclear 3D MAS NMR assignment concept utilizing pulse sequences with 2HDQ-13C transfer steps and evolution of deuterium double-quantum chemical shift

Features of Neck Pain and its Related Factors Among Patients With Cervical Spondylosis

Background and aims: The prevalence of cervical spondylosis is rising. The objective of this study was to figure out the various features and their related factors among cervical spondylosis patients in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted enrolling 40 patients from NITOR (National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedic Rehabilitation) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Data were collected from the physiotherapy department of NITOR using convenient sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Patients who were diagnosed with cervical spondylosis were included in this study. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Descriptive analysis was done using frequency measures, mean and percentages. Results: Among our respondents, the majority of them were female (62.5%). Majority of the participants were in the age group of 35 to 50 years (62.5%). Many of them were urban population engaged in service or housewives. Stressful job (55%), duration of working hour >8 hours (62.5%) were the most common characteristics among patients. The main location of pain was in the shoulder (82.5%) followed by the neck (77.4%) and forearm (70%). Most patients had intermittent pain (57.5%), numbness (55%), tingling sensation (47.5%) and paresthesia (42.5%). Moderate type of pain (65%), the involvement of both upper limbs (35%) and radiating pain to shoulder (72.5%) were the most reported features by patients. No response to medication was also observed. Conclusion: Being female, middle age group, stressful occupation, location and radiation of pain to shoulder are some of the common features revealed in this study. The findings will help the practitioner to plan their treatment goals and techniques considering the characteristics of patients

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MONITORING FRAUDELENT TRANSACTIONS AT MERCHANT LEVEL IN REAL TIME PAYMENT

Disclosed herein is a method and system providing Merchants direct access to the powerful issuer authorization rules engine to evaluate and block card payment transaction in real-time from potential fraud at checkout. The access to the intelligent rules can be made by enabling a secure connection to the Risk Manager (RM). The real-time data will empower the Merchant to not forward the fraudulent transaction onto the acquirer for further processing, saving the transaction processing fees as eliminating back-office overheads on failed payments