The Effects of Employees Empowerment on Organizational Performance: A Case of Hotel Industry in Pakistan

The main objective of the study is to explore the effect of employee’s empowerment on organizational performance. The study results show that employee’s empowerment explained a significant relation with organizational performance also with the mediator variable that is motivation. Convenience sampling is used as the sampling strategy. This survey is based on questionnaire and data is collected from 150 managers of Hotel sector organizations located in Faisalabad. To analyses the data, SPSS version 23.0 is used. To check the relationship between the variables correlation analysis is used and to checks the effect between variables linear regression analysis is used. Thus, all the hypotheses showed significant results. Keywords: Employees empowerment, Motivation, Organizational performanc

The Effect of Learning Organization Environment and Innovative Work Behavior Under the Moderation Role of Employee Engagement in Public Sector Organization

The main objective of the study is to explore the impact of learning organization environment on innovative work behavior. The study results show that learning organization environment explained a significant relation with innovative work behavior also with the mediator variable that is employee engagement. Convenience sampling is used as the sampling strategy. This survey is based on questionnaire and data is collected from 140 managers of Public sector organizations located in Faisalabad. To analyses the data, SPSS version 23.0 is used. To check the relationship between the variables correlation analysis is used and to checks the effect between variables linear regression analysis is used. Thus, all the hypotheses showed significant results. Keywords: Learning Organization environment, innovative work behavior, employee engagemen

Dilemma of Magic and Witchcraft: It’s Relation with the Ethnicity of Elizabethan Age

This study explores the elements of supernaturalism and witchcraft as the prominent theme in Shakespeare’s play “Othello”. However, it does not have any direct allusion to ghosts and witches but the role of magic is eminent in this play. It can be overlooked by abundant references to bewitchment, prominent among which are the magical history of handkerchief and the allegation of Brabantio against Othello. This will bring to light that cultural background has a prominent impact on Shakespeare’s plays and the role of magic in Othello imposes threats on Venetian society. Shakespeare’s work will be analysed in the light of New Historicism Theory, which explores the work of art and literature in relation to its cultural context. The study has brougt the role of witchcraft and magic to the surface which is ambiguous in the play and has prominent impact on society and culture of that time. Keywords: Supernatural Elements, Magic, Bewitchment, Magical History, New Historicism, handkerchief, Venetian Society, Witchcraf

Cost Performance in Construction Industry of Pakistan

Construction industry is notorious and infamous as far as cost base lines and project budgets are concerned. More than 90 percent of projects delay gets over budgeted or completely abandoned due to either paucity of funds or mismanagement at different levels. Despite a major contributor in the Gross Domestic Product of a country, its full potential has never been exploited. Perhaps this retrogressive atmosphere has been cultivated by callous, careless and unprofessional attitudes of all stakeholders of construction industry. The primary stakeholders which affect the projects positively or negatively in cost dimension are; the government, the contractors, the consultants and the clients or owners. The authors conducted interviews as well as surveys with construction professionals, contractors, architects, design engineers, suppliers and sub contractors in order identify the most occurring causes of cost overruns in construction projects. In addition to this contemporary literature was studied and reviewed with a purpose to assess the current and ongoing issues in the construction industry. A questionnaire was distributed among respondents on cost performance of various completed and under construction projects, with a view to highlight the concrete reasons which push the projects out of approved budgets. The major conclusions from this research paper which have been drawn are; corruption and bribery, political interests, poor site management, delay in site mobilization, rigid attitude by consultants, extra work without approvals, frequent changes during execution, gold platting, safety and health and limited access to job sites. In order to avoid, eliminate or mitigate effects of these causes viable recommendations have been recommended. Keywords: Cost Performance, Construction Industry, Pakista

Power Flow and Transient Stability Enhancement using Thyristor Controlled Series Compensation

TL (Transmission Line) congestion is a key factor that affects the power system operational cost. In addition of renewable generation in National Grid of Pakistan, transmission line congestion are frequent. Consequently, the network in this particular region faces severe congestion and dynamic stability problems. It has been planned that renewable plants shaved to curtail some available generation to minimize this inevitable congestion. However, one of the cost-efficient solutions to this problem is series compensation of lines using TCSC (Thyristor Controlled Series Compensation). It significantly increases the transfer capability of existing power transmission and enhances the dynamic stability of system at a lower cost, and has shorter installation time as compared to the construction of new TLs. This paper deals with the dynamic modeling of a TCSC in the NTDC (National Transmission and Dispatch Company) network with its applications to alleviate congestion during fault conditions. This study has been carried out using simulation software PSS/E (Power System Simulator for Engineers) which does not have a predefined dynamic model for TCSC, this leads to the necessity of creating a user defined model. The model of TCSC has been programmed in FORTRAN and compiled along with existing dynamic models of network components. The results indicate that power flow and dynamic stability of network is enhance

N-(2-Meth­oxy­phen­yl)-4-methyl­benzene­sulfonamide

In the title compound, C14H15NO3S, the geometry around the S atom of the SO2 group is distorted tetra­hedral. The meth­oxy- and methyl-substituted aromatic rings are oriented at a dihedral angle of 71.39 (9)°. Inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds form inversion dimers, which stabilize the crystal structure

Review of morphological, optical and structural characteristics of TiO2 thin film prepared by sol gel spin-coating technique

Optical, structural and morphological properties of titanium dioxide (TiO2) deposited by spin coating method have been reviewed in the current work. Sol–gel spin coating is a cost effective and versatile technique due to intellectual properties like simple instruments, easy preparation technique, and less time consuming. In this method, compound in the form of metal oxides is liquefied in a specific liquid in order to bring it back as a solid in a skillful manner. Study of metal oxide thin films have valuable applications in numerous semiconductor devices such as optoelectronics devices and solar energy converters etc. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis has been used for studying TiO2 thin films and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis has been applied for morphological investigation and to prove the nanosized structure. Optical and structural properties have been studied as a function of the annealing temperatures. XRD analysis reveals that the films crystallize in orthorhombic brookite phase. Moreover, UV-visible has been used to investigate the optical properties of material. XRD characterization indicates that crystalline structure of TiO2 thin films improves with increasing annealing temperatures which confirms the anatase form of TiO2 thin film. Optical band gap is significantly dependent on the annealing temperatures. The refractive index may increases with increase of crystallite size. The TiO2 film annealed at 400 °C shows high refractive index 2.52 at a wavelength of 335 nm. Moreover, optical band gapes of thin film vary approximately from 3.3 to 3.46 eV which show strong relation with annealing temperature

Does bone mineral density improve the predictive accuracy of fracture risk assessment?: a prospective cohort study in Northern Denmark

Objective: To evaluate the added predictive accuracy of bone mineral density (BMD) to fracture risk assessment.Design Prospective cohort study using data between 01 January 2010 and 31 December 2012. Setting: North Denmark Osteoporosis Clinic of referred patients presenting with at least one fracture risk factor to the referring doctor.Participants Patients aged 40–90 years; had BMD T-score recorded at the hip and not taking osteoporotic preventing drugs for more than 1 year prior to baseline. Main outcome measures: Incident diagnoses of osteoporotic fractures (hip, spine, forearm, humerus and pelvis) were identified using the National Patient Registry of Denmark during 01 January 2012–01 January 2014. Cox regression was used to develop a fracture model based on predictors in the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX®), with and without, binary and continuous BMD. Change in Harrell’s C-Index and Reclassification tables were used to describe the added statistical value of BMD. Results: Adjusting for predictors included in FRAX®, patients with osteoporosis (T-score ≤−2.5) had 75% higher hazard of a fracture compared with patients with higher BMD (HR: 1.75 (95% CI 1.28 to 2.38)). Forty per cent lower hazard was found per unit increase in continuous BMD T-score (HR: 0.60 (95% CI 0.52 to 0.69)).Accuracy improved marginally, and Harrell’s C-Index increased by 1.2% when adding continuous BMD (0.76 to 0.77). Reclassification tables showed continuous BMD shifted 529 patients into different risk categories; 292 of these were reclassified correctly (57%; 95% CI 55% to 64%). Adding binary BMD however no improvement: Harrell’s C-Index decreased by 0.6%. Conclusions: Continuous BMD marginally improves fracture risk assessment. Importantly, this was only found when using continuous BMD measurement for osteoporosis. It is suggested that future focus should be on evaluation of this risk factor using routinely collected data and on the development of more clinically relevant methodology to assess the added value of a new risk factor

Book Review

Jamil, I., Dhakal, T. K. and Oaudel, N. R. (eds.) (2019).Civil Service Management and Administrative Systems in South Asia.Palgrave Macmilla

Psychometric Evaluation of Dietary Habits Questionnaire for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

This research evaluated the psychometric properties of English version of dietary habits questionnaires developed for type 2 diabetic patients. There is scarcity of literature about availability of standardized questionnaires for assessing dietary habits of type 2 diabetics in Saudi Arabia. As dietary habits vary from country to country, therefore, this was an attempt to develop questionnaires that can serve as a baseline. Through intensive literature review, four questionnaires were developed / modified and subsequently tested for psychometric properties. Prior to pilot study, a pre-test was conducted to evaluate the face validity and content validity. The pilot study was conducted from 23 October – 22 November, 2016 to evaluate the questionnaires’ reliability and validity. Systematic random sampling technique was used to collect the data from 132 patients by direct investigation method. Questionnaires assessing diabetes mellitus knowledge (0.891), dietary knowledge (0.869), dietary attitude (0.841) and dietary practices (0.874) had good internal consistency reliability. Factor analysis conducted on dietary attitude questionnaire showed a valid 5 factor solution. Directions of loadings were positive and free from factorial complexity. Relying on the data obtained from type 2 diabetics, these questionnaires can be considered as reliable and valid for the assessment of dietary habits in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Gulf countries population