How Vulnerable are Bangladesh’s Indigenous People to Climate Change?

This paper compares the vulnerabilities to climate change and climate variability of the indigenous people with the Bengali population of Bangladesh. It distinguishes between (a) individual vulnerabilities that are related to an individual’s capability to adapt to climate change and; (b) spatial vulnerabilities, that is, vulnerabilities that are related to the location of a person (like the exposure to climate change-induced disasters). While an individual’s capability to adapt to climate change is determined by many factors, some relatively simple approximation is to look at poverty, landlessness, and illiteracy. Spatial vulnerabilities are reviewed by looking at drought hazard maps, flood hazard maps, landslide hazard maps, and cyclone hazard maps. Hence, the paper compares levels of poverty, landlessness, illiteracy, and the more direct though also more subjective exposures to increased droughts, floods, landslides, and cyclones across the two population groups. The paper concludes with some broad suggestions on adaptation strategies of indigenous people as well as suggestions for policy interventions to reduce climate change-induced vulnerabilities for indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).Bangladesh, climate change, vulnerability

SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE A SOURCE OF IMPROVED EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE THROUGH ORGANIZATION COMMITMENT

The purpose of this study is to present an analysis on the impact of the of Spiritual intelligence on the Organization commitment of the employees and also on the employee performance, it also involves a study of the mediating role of the Organization commitment between the Spiritual intelligence and  employee performance in the Telecom sector of Pakistan. Relationship of the seven major themes of the spiritual intelligence also known as dimensions of spiritual intelligence have also been individually tested with organization commitment. Questionnaire distribution method was used to conduct this research. The total numbers of respondents were 258 in which the respondents of belonged to different service providers and mobile phone operators. People surveyed are all employees of the stated companies. The findings of this research paper indicate that all of  the  dimensions spiritual intelligence are positively correlated with the  organization commitment and there is a significant evidence that the organization commitment serves as a mediator between the Spiritual intelligence and Employee performance. This paper encourages the companies that they should on the development and promotion of the spiritual intelligence in the employees in order to increase their level of organization commitment and performance.Keywords –Spiritual intelligence, dimensions of spiritual intelligence , Organization commitment, Employee performance

Drinking Water Salinity and Maternal Health in Coastal Bangladesh: Implications of Climate Change.

Background: Drinking water from natural sources in coastal Bangladesh has become contaminated by varying degrees of salinity due to saltwater intrusion from rising sea levels, cyclone and storm surges and upstream withdrawal of freshwater. Objective: Our objective was to estimate salt intake from drinking water sources and examine environmental factors that may explain a seasonal excess of hypertension in pregnancy. Methods: Water salinity data (1998-2000) for Dacope, in rural coastal Bangladesh, were obtained from the Centre for Environment and Geographic Information System. Information on drinking water sources, 24-hour urine samples and blood pressure were obtained from 343 pregnant Dacope women during the dry season (October 2009 - March 2010). The hospital-based prevalence of hypertension in pregnancy was determined for 969 pregnant women (July 2008 - March 2010). Results: Average estimated sodium intakes from drinking water ranged from 5 to 16 g/day in the dry season, compared to 0.6 - 1.2 g/day in the rainy season. Average daily sodium excretion in urine was 3.4 g/day (range 0.4 - 7.7 g/d). Women who drank shallow tubewell water were more likely to have urine sodium > 100 mmol/d than women who drank rainwater (OR=2.05, 95% CI: 1.11 - 3.80). The annual hospital prevalence of hypertension in pregnancy was higher in the dry season (12.2%, 95% CI: 9.5 - 14.8) than the rainy season (5.1%, 95% CI: 2.91 - 7.26). Conclusions: The estimated salt intake from drinking water in this population exceeded recommended limits. The problem of saline intrusion into drinking water has multiple causes and is likely to be exacerbated by climate change induced sea-level rise

Pengurusan keselamatan dalam produksi teater Live Spectacle (NARUTO) dan dia Semanis Honey Muzikal dari perspektif teori domino / Mohamad Atiq Abdul Rahman

Kajian ilmiah ini mengkaji tentang Pengurusan Keselamatan dalam Produksi Teater Live Spectacle Naruto (2016) dan Dia Semanis Honey Muzikal (2017). Penulis menggunakan Teori Domino iaitu teori penyebab kemalangan dan penulis akan membuat hubung kait di dalam Pengurusan Keselamatan dalam Produksi Teater. Teori Domino menyatakan bahawa kemalangan adalah rentetan peristiwa dan berpunca daripada kecuaian individu. Percanggahan pendapat berkenaan teori wujud apabila pengkaji professional menyatakan Teori Domino dikaitkan dengan kemalangan yang berlaku disebabkan oleh kelemahan pengurusan. Penulis ingin mengenal pasti adakah teori ini tepat dan boleh dikaitkan di dalam produksi teater. Kajian ini menggunakan kaedah kualitatif dimana penulis akan membuat pemerhatian terhadap dua produksi teater iaitu Teater Live Spectacle Naruto (2016) dan Dia Semanis Honey Muzikal (2017). Pemerhatian dilakukan mengikut setiap proses kerja yang dilakukan sepanjang produksi teater berlangsung dan penulis akan menfokuskan kepada Pengurusan Keselamatan dalam Produksi Teater. Kajian ini juga menggunakan kaedah temu bual untuk menambahkan lagi maklumat kajian sekaligus dapat membantu penulis mendapatkan hasil kajian. Penulis akan membuat kesimpulan dan rumusan berdasarkan segala hasil kajian yang diperoleh. Setiap pandangan dan pendapat yang diperoleh daripada hasil kajian akan menjawab segala persoalan kajian lantas dapat mencapai objektif kajian yang dikehendaki

SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE A SOURCE OF IMPROVED EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE THROUGH ORGANIZATION COMMITMENT

The purpose of this study is to present an analysis on the impact of the of Spiritual intelligence on the Organization commitment of the employees and also on the employee performance, it also involves a study of the mediating role of the Organization commitment between the Spiritual intelligence and  employee performance in the Telecom sector of Pakistan. Relationship of the seven major themes of the spiritual intelligence also known as dimensions of spiritual intelligence have also been individually tested with organization commitment. Questionnaire distribution method was used to conduct this research. The total numbers of respondents were 258 in which the respondents of belonged to different service providers and mobile phone operators. People surveyed are all employees of the stated companies. The findings of this research paper indicate that all of  the  dimensions spiritual intelligence are positively correlated with the  organization commitment and there is a significant evidence that the organization commitment serves as a mediator between the Spiritual intelligence and Employee performance. This paper encourages the companies that they should on the development and promotion of the spiritual intelligence in the employees in order to increase their level of organization commitment and performance.Keywords –Spiritual intelligence, dimensions of spiritual intelligence , Organization commitment, Employee performance

Co-EEORS : cooperative energy efficient optimal relay selection protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

Cooperative routing mitigates the adverse channel effects in the harsh underwater environment and ensures reliable delivery of packets from the bottom to the surface of water. Cooperative routing is analogous to sparse recovery in that faded copies of data packets are processed by the destination node to extract the desired information. However, it usually requires information about the two or three position coordinates of the nodes. It also requires the synchronization of the source, relay, and destination nodes. These features make the cooperative routing a challenging task as sensor nodes move with water currents. Moreover, the data packets are simply discarded if the acceptable threshold is not met at the destination. This threatens the reliable delivery of data to the final destination. To cope with these challenges, this paper proposes a cooperative energy-efficient optimal relay selection protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks. Unlike the existing routing protocols involving cooperation, the proposed scheme combines location and depth of the sensor nodes to select the destination nodes. Combination of these two parameters does not involve knowing the position coordinates of the nodes and results in selection of the destination nodes closest to the water surface. As a result, data packets are less affected by the channel properties. In addition, a source node chooses a relay node and a destination node. Data packets are sent to the destination node by the relay node as soon as the relay node receives them. This eliminates the need for synchronization among the source, relay, and destination nodes. Moreover, the destination node acknowledges the source node about the successful reception or retransmission of the data packets. This overcomes the packets drop. Based on simulation results, the proposed scheme is superior in delivering packets to the final destination than some existing techniques. © 2013 IEEE

Supervised classification for object identification in urban areas using satellite imagery

This paper presents a useful method to achieve classification in satellite imagery. The approach is based on pixel level study employing various features such as correlation, homogeneity, energy and contrast. In this study gray-scale images are used for training the classification model. For supervised classification, two classification techniques are employed namely the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and the Naive Bayes. With textural features used for gray-scale images, Naive Bayes performs better with an overall accuracy of 76% compared to 68% achieved by SVM. The computational time is evaluated while performing the experiment with two different window sizes i.e., 50x50 and 70x70. The required computational time on a single image is found to be 27 seconds for a window size of 70x70 and 45 seconds for a window size of 50x50.Comment: 2018 International Conference on Computing, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies (iCoMET

Mumps myocarditis: a forgotten disease?

Mumps is an acute viral illness that follows a self-limiting course but up to 10% of cases have a complicated course with the involvement of other organ systems. Myocarditis is reported as a complication but the incidence has greatly fallen ever since the development of the mumps vaccine. A child presented to our department with parotid swelling and fever. Persistent tachycardia with irregular pulse led to further cardiac work up which showed decreased ejection fraction and raised serum cardiac enzymes, indicating myocardial damage. With ionotropic agents and supportive care, there was complete normalization of ejection fraction and serum cardiac enzyme levels. He was discharged within a week of admission. This case highlights the importance of suspecting myocarditis in the setting of mumps, a diagnosis that precludes early suspicion in mumps patients suffering from cardiac symptoms not explained by other potential aetiologies. Early suspicion and timely supportive care are essential to ensure favourable outcomes