Organizational Silence A Predictor of Organizational Commitment in Higher Education Institution

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: how the organizational silence is related with organizational commitment and how it affects the employees. The focus is particularly on the higher education institutions in the federal territory. Design/ Methodology/Approach-The scientific data which has been collected from the teachers of higher education in the form of survey questionnaire on which statistical techniques were implied. The sample size was consist of 80 teachers of public educational institutions out of which 55 were received and 44 were stand correct. The approach adopted in this study is exploratory in nature in order to explore relationship between organizational silence and organizational commitment. Findings-In our findings any relationship of the dimensions of organizational silence in context of reasons why employees remain silent is not found with organization commitment. We believe that this must be related to the chosen organization. The correlation is found positive between organization silence and organizational commitment but regression analysis shows in significance of organizational silence with organizational commitment Research limitations/ Implications-The sample used is relatively small due to lack of time and resources. The research is based upon higher education sector only. Practical implications-Managers will find the study useful in evaluating the environment of organization for employees which feel silence behavior, including the level of organizational commitment for the employees. Originality/Value-The study is focused on the different dimensions of organizational silence which include in the scale and correlates to something that is lacking in the literature. The paper will give birth to the debate and discussion of different dimensions of organizational silence in with the relationship of organizational commitment, and   contribute or plugin new experimental fact findings. It also focus on the increasing importance of the organizational silence which is prevailing in the organizations of the current era. Keywords: Organizational silence; Organizational commitment; Higher education sector; Federal territor

Enhanced label noise filtering with multiple voting

© 2019 by the authors. Label noises exist in many applications, and their presence can degrade learning performance. Researchers usually use filters to identify and eliminate them prior to training. The ensemble learning based filter (EnFilter) is the most widely used filter. According to the voting mechanism, EnFilter is mainly divided into two types: single-voting based (SVFilter) and multiple-voting based (MVFilter). In general, MVFilter is more often preferred because multiple-voting could address the intrinsic limitations of single-voting. However, the most important unsolved issue in MVFilter is how to determine the optimal decision point (ODP). Conceptually, the decision point is a threshold value, which determines the noise detection performance. To maximize the performance of MVFilter, we propose a novel approach to compute the optimal decision point. Our approach is data driven and cost sensitive, which determines the ODP based on the given noisy training dataset and noise misrecognition cost matrix. The core idea of our approach is to estimate the mislabeled data probability distributions, based on which the expected cost of each possible decision point could be inferred. Experimental results on a set of benchmark datasets illustrate the utility of our proposed approach

Does courtesy bias affect how clients report on objective and subjective measures of family planning service quality? A comparison between facility- and home-based interviews

Purpose: Despite a general understanding that exit interviews being conducted at service providers\u27 facilities may influence clients\u27 responses favorably to health professionals, there is very little evidence available that demonstrates the extent to which this problem exists. This study aimed at assessing and comparing clients\u27 perceptions of the quality of family planning services and their satisfaction levels between facility- and home-based interviews.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among clients receiving family planning services across three service delivery channels - nongovernmental organization (NGO) clinics, social franchise (SF) centers, and outreach camps. The survey took place from December 2015 to January 2016 in 70 districts across all four provinces of Pakistan. A total of 2,807 clients were interviewed, of whom 1,404 clients were interviewed at health facilities after receiving services and 1,403 were interviewed at their homes within 3 days of method uptake.Results: Overall, we found no significant differences between the characteristics of study participants interviewed at health facilities or at home. The findings suggested that experiences reported in exit surveys at facilities were strongly biased positively. This was true for both experiential (service quality) and perception-based (satisfaction) questions in the context of SF centers, while at NGO clinics the interview location only affected clients\u27 responses regarding service quality. However, in outreach settings, clients are more likely to share bad experiences in exit interviews than in home-based interviews on objectively asked questions (service quality).Conclusion: Our study indicates signs of courtesy bias and possibly the Hawthorne effect in exit interviews. Program implementers could opt for home-based interviews for women receiving services at NGO clinics or SF center, whereas exit interviews could be used in outreach settings

Fuzziness-based active learning framework to enhance hyperspectral image classification performance for discriminative and generative classifiers

© 2018 Ahmad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hyperspectral image classification with a limited number of training samples without loss of accuracy is desirable, as collecting such data is often expensive and time-consuming. However, classifiers trained with limited samples usually end up with a large generalization error. To overcome the said problem, we propose a fuzziness-based active learning framework (FALF), in which we implement the idea of selecting optimal training samples to enhance generalization performance for two different kinds of classifiers, discriminative and generative (e.g. SVM and KNN). The optimal samples are selected by first estimating the boundary of each class and then calculating the fuzziness-based distance between each sample and the estimated class boundaries. Those samples that are at smaller distances from the boundaries and have higher fuzziness are chosen as target candidates for the training set. Through detailed experimentation on three publically available datasets, we showed that when trained with the proposed sample selection framework, both classifiers achieved higher classification accuracy and lower processing time with the small amount of training data as opposed to the case where the training samples were selected randomly. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method, which equates favorably with the state-of-the-art methods

Correlating health and wellness analytics for personalized decision making

© 2015 IEEE. Personalized healthcare envisions providing customized treatment and management plans to individuals at their doorstep. Key factors to ensure personalized healthcare is to involve with the individual in their daily life activities and process the gathered information to provide recommendations. We identified the mostly exposed domains for gathering chronic disease patients information that includes: clinical, social media, and daily life activities. Clinical data is related to the health-care of the patients while social media, sensory, and wearables data is related to the wellness data of the patients. A framework is required to monitor the health and wellness information of the patients for health and wellness analytics provisioning to the physicians for better decision making. We propose Personalized, Ubiquitous Life-care Decision Support System (PULSE); a state of the art decision support system that helps physicians and patients in life-style management of chronic disease patients such as Diabetes. The proposed approach not only utilizes clinical information but also personalized information by correlation to find hidden information using big data health analytic for improvement of life-care. PULSE provides health analytics by utilizing and processing clinical information of the patient. In the same way, it provides wellness analytics to the patients by using their social, activities, emotions and daily life information. The co-relation between clinical and personalized analytics is performed for better recommendations to the patients. This eventually results in improved life-care and healthy living of the individuals

An experimental study on non-destructive evaluation of the mechanical characteristics of a sustainable concrete incorporating industrial waste

Structural materials sustainability is gaining popularity across the globe at present. Reusing natural resources, building, demolition debris, and solid waste are the most apparent tools to make construction more environmentally friendly. Traditional concrete is believed to be less durable, stronger, environmentally friendly, and socially and commercially feasible than industrial waste concrete. The evolution of non-destructive testing (NDT) across time has not been investigated in depth by researchers. An experimental study was carried out to propose the use of non-destructive mechanisms that would enable us to assess concrete’s compressive strength without causing destruction. Varying quantities of industrial waste (coal bottom ash (CBA) and waste glass sludge (WGS)) were incorporated to cast concrete prisms (150 mm × 150 mm × 150 mm). The results obtained helped us to establish relationships between the compressive strength of concrete and the Schmidt hammer rebound value, as well as the ultrasonic pulse velocities. Microstructural analysis showed that incorporating 10% of CBA and WGS improved the porosity of concrete specimens, which shows the applicability of these industrial wastes as partial cement replacements. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed traces of calcium alumino-silicate hydrate (C-A-S-H), portlandite and C-S-H, which indicates the binder characteristics of CBA and WGS. The concept of the response surface approach (RSM) for optimizing cement and industrial waste substitution was validated by the polynomial work expectation. The model was statistically significant when the fluctuation of ANOVA was analyzed using a p value with a significance level of 0.05. The study results show that the usage of 15% CBA and 10% WGS as a cementitious additive and cement replacement has the potential to increase the strength of concrete significantly

Family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practices among married men and women in rural areas of Pakistan: Findings from a qualitative need assessment study

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative assessment aimed at exploring knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding family planning and factors that influence the need for and use of modern contraceptives. A descriptive exploratory study was conducted with married women and men aged between 15 and 40. Overall, 24 focus group discussions were conducted with male and female participants in three provinces of Pakistan. The findings reveal that the majority knew about some modern contraceptive methods, but the overall contraceptive use was very low. Knowledge and use of any contraceptive method were particularly low. Reasons for not using family planning and modern contraception included incomplete family size, negative perceptions, in-laws\u27 disapproval, religious concerns, side-effects, and lack of access to quality services. The majority preferred private facilities over the government health facilities as the later were cited as derided. The study concluded the need for qualified female healthcare providers, especially for long term family planning services at health facilities instead of camps arranged occasionally. Addressing issues around access, affordability, availability, and sociocultural barriers about modern contraception as well as involving men will help to meet the needs and ensure that the women and couples fulfill their childbearing and reproductive health goals

Determinants of method switching among social franchise clients who discontinued the use of intrauterine contraceptive device

Introduction: Women who do not switch to alternatemethods after contraceptive discontinuation, for reasons other than the desire to get pregnant or not needing it, are at obvious risk for unplanned pregnancies or unwanted births. This paper examines the factors that influence women to switch from Intrauterine Contraceptive Device (IUCD) to other methods instead of terminating contraceptive usage altogether. Methods: The data used for this study comes from a larger cross-sectional survey conducted in nine (9) randomly selected districts of Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan, during January 2011. Using Stata 11.2, we analyzed data on 333 women, who reported the removal of IUCDs due to reasons other than the desire to get pregnant. Results: We found that 39.9% of the women do not switch to another method of contraception within one month after IUCD discontinuation. Use of contraception before IUCD insertion increases the odds for method switching by 2.26 times after removal. Similarly, postremoval follow-up by community health worker doubles (OR = 2.0) the chances of method switching. Compared with women who received free IUCD service (via voucher scheme), the method switching is 2.01 times higher among women who had paid for IUCD insertion. Conclusion: To increase the likelihood of method switching among IUCD discontinuers this study emphasizes the need for postremoval client counseling, follow-up by healthcare provider, improved choices to a wider range of contraceptives for poor clients, and user satisfaction

Impact of social franchising on contraceptive use when complemented by vouchers: A quasi-experimental study in rural Pakistan

Background: Pakistan has had a low contraceptive prevalence rate for the last two decades; with preference for natural birth spacing methods and condoms. Family planning services offered by the public sector have never fulfilled the demand for contraception, particularly in rural areas. In the private sector, cost is a major constraint. In 2008, Marie Stopes Society - a local NGO started a social franchise programme along with a free voucher scheme to promote uptake of IUCDs amongst the poor. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of this approach, which is designed to increase modern long term contraceptive awareness and use in rural areas of Pakistan.Methodology: We used a quasi-experimental study design with controls, selecting one intervention district and one control district from the Sindh and Punjab provinces. In each district, we chose a total of four service providers. A baseline survey was carried out among 4,992 married women of reproductive age (MWRA) in February 2009. Eighteen months after the start of intervention, an independent endline survey was conducted among 4,003 women. We used multilevel logistic regression for analysis using Stata 11.Results: Social franchising used alongside free vouchers for long term contraceptive choices significantly increased the awareness of modern contraception. Awareness increased by 5% in the intervention district. Similarly, the ever use of modern contraceptive increased by 28.5%, and the overall contraceptive prevalence rate increased by 19.6%. A significant change (11.1%) was recorded in the uptake of IUCDs, which were being promoted with vouchers.Conclusion: Family planning franchise model promotes awareness and uptake of contraceptives. Moreover, supplemented with vouchers, it may enhance the use of IUCDs, which have a significant cost attached. Our research also supports a multi-pronged approach- generating demand through counselling, overcoming financial constraints by offering vouchers, training, accreditation and branding of the service providers, and ensuring uninterrupted contraceptive supplies

Holistic User eXperience in Mobile Augmented Reality Using User eXperience Measurement Index

© 2019 IEEE. User eXperience (UX) evaluation in the field of Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) is a challenging task, which requires the application of many heterogeneous methods, producing a variety of raw signals and subjective data. This multi-method approach is essential for capturing the holistic UX of any product, service or system. In order to convert this data into information and subsequently knowledge, a comprehensive and scalable system is required which can not only quantify the individual UX metrics but also produce a concise result, which is interpretable by anyone. We call this result, the User Experience Measurement Index, and in this paper we present the results of adopting the mixed method UX evaluation approach for evaluating a prototype MAR application using various methods and sensors, applied before, during, and after its usage. Additionally, we present the methodology and results for calculating the UXMI