Identifying the Reliability and Validity of Hard and Soft HRM Measures: A Study on the Banking Sector of Bangladesh

The effectiveness of Human Resource Management (HRM) is based on the realization of two models of HRM – the ‘Hard’ model and the ‘Soft’ model, which are now widely practiced. No study was conducted in the context of Bangladesh. Thus, a valid and reliable measurement of Hard and Soft HRM is vital for managing human resources in changing competitive businessenvironments. This study explores HRM practices in the banking sector of Bangladesh in terms of these two categories. The results indicate that the scale used in the study is valid and reliable to conduct further studies. Descriptive statistics reveals that the banking sector of Bangladesh practices a combination of both Hard and Soft HRM. It is found that most employees of the banks of Bangladesh think that HRM practices and policies can increase employee motivation, satisfaction, commitment, and welfare. Many of the employees in fact consider the HRM practices and policies as fair and facilitating towards employee development

An Evaluation of the Quality of Work Life: A Study of the Faculty Members of Private Universities in Bangladesh

 In Bangladesh, Quality of Work Life (QWL) is still a new concept to emerge although four decades have passed since its inception. Very few initiatives have been taken to identify employee QWL in different sectors of Bangladesh (i.e. banking, hospitals, tobacco, schools, etc.) and the private higher education sector is still unexplored. Thus the current study aims to explore the perception of the faculty members of private universities in Bangladesh about their QWL. The study looks in detail at the prospects and problems of QWL and its related dimensions.A quantitative survey of 72 full-time faculty members from 11 private universities is conducted based on a structured questionnaire designed with a 5-point Likert-scale. First, avalidity and reliability test is conducted. According to the factor mean values, three most positively perceived QWL dimensions are social relevance of work life, safe and healthy working condition, and social integration in the work organization. Correlational analysis reveals a significant relationship between QWL and its dimensions. Several nonparametric t-tests are conducted to explore whether the QWL of the faculty members vary due to the differences in gender, faculty/department, education, job position, experience, and marital status. The results reveal significant differences about the perception of QWL exist in terms of gender and faculty/department of the university. At the end step-wise regression analysis reveals, social relevance of work life, adequate and fair compensation, and constitutionalism, are three dimensions of QWL which work as predictor variables to determine the QWL of the faculty members in private universities

Mathematical modeling and trajectory planning of hand finger movements

This paper presents a mathematical model of trajectory during movement of human hand finger. Mathematical models of finger’s movement are necessary to control the finger of prosthetic hands, rehabilitation platform, and hand of cooperative robots. A simple platform is constructed with flexi force sensor and data acquisition circuit. Trajectories are calculated from the position data of the finger movement. Movement with various speed of the finger are maintained. Finally, Curve Fitting Toolbox of MATLAB is used to derive the mathematical model of finger trajectory. The obtained result could be beneficial to design the controller of the finger of prosthetic hands, rehabilitation platform, and hand of cooperative robots

Characteristics of Human Arm Impedances: A Study on Daily Movement

Abstract-This paper presents the impedance characteristics of human arm in daily spatial activity. Human arm is considered as a mass-spring-damper system. The input data in the form of Cartesian position is measured to get dynamic impedance relationship by the motion equation for the mass-springdamper system. Mappings are done by various combinations to observe the nature of the different impedance components during dynamic movement. The significant amount of variation in damping and inertia components are observed in every turning of the arm movement while the stiffness shows the changing behavior throughout the movement. From this study it is known that for this particular movement the arm follows a pattern and same behavior is followed for the repetitions of the movement. The obtained result could be beneficial for the study of upper extremity exoskeleton for human rehabilitation

Determining clinical biomarkers to predict long-term SARS-CoV-2 antibody response among COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh

BackgroundInformation on antibody responses following SARS-CoV-2 infection, including the magnitude and duration of responses, is limited. In this analysis, we aimed to identify clinical biomarkers that can predict long-term antibody responses following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection.MethodologyIn this prospective study, we enrolled 100 COVID-19 patients between November 2020 and February 2021 and followed them for 6 months. The association of clinical laboratory parameters on enrollment, including lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR), C-reactive protein (CRP), ferritin, procalcitonin (PCT), and D-dimer, with predicting the geometric mean (GM) concentration of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)-specific IgG antibody at 3 and 6 months post-infection was assessed in multivariable linear regression models.ResultThe mean ± SD age of patients in the cohort was 46.8 ± 14 years, and 58.8% were male. Data from 68 patients at 3 months follow-up and 55 patients at 6 months follow-up were analyzed. Over 90% of patients were seropositive against RBD-specific IgG till 6 months post-infection. At 3 months, for any 10% increase in absolute lymphocyte count and NLR, there was a 6.28% (95% CI: 9.68, −2.77) decrease and 4.93% (95% CI: 2.43, 7.50) increase, respectively, in GM of IgG concentration, while any 10% increase for LDH, CRP, ferritin, and procalcitonin was associated with a 10.63, 2.87, 2.54, and 3.11% increase in the GM of IgG concentration, respectively. Any 10% increase in LDH, CRP, and ferritin was similarly associated with an 11.28, 2.48, and 3.0% increase in GM of IgG concentration at 6 months post-infection.ConclusionSeveral clinical biomarkers in the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection are associated with enhanced IgG antibody response detected after 6 months of disease onset. The measurement of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody responses requires improved techniques and is not feasible in all settings. Baseline clinical biomarkers can be a useful alternative as they can predict antibody response during the convalescence period. Individuals with an increased level of NLR, CRP, LDH, ferritin, and procalcitonin may benefit from the boosting effect of vaccines. Further analyses will determine whether biochemical parameters can predict RBD-specific IgG antibody responses at later time points and the association of neutralizing antibody responses

National-scale flood risk assessment using GIS and remote sensing-based hybridized deep neural network and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process models : a case of Bangladesh

Assessing flood risk is challenging due to complex interactions among flood susceptibility, hazard, exposure, and vulnerability parameters. This study presents a novel flood risk assessment framework by utilizing a hybridized deep neural network (DNN) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) models. Bangladesh was selected as a case study region, where limited studies examined flood risk at a national scale. The results exhibited that hybridized DNN and fuzzy AHP models can produce the most accurate flood risk map while comparing among 15 different models. About 20.45% of Bangladesh are at flood risk zones of moderate, high, and very high severity. The northeastern region, as well as areas adjacent to the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna rivers, have high flood damage potential, where a significant number of people were affected during the 2020 flood event. The risk assessment framework developed in this study would help policymakers formulate a comprehensive flood risk management system

Water level forecasting using spatiotemporal attention-based long short-term memory network

Bangladesh is in the floodplains of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna River delta, crisscrossed by an intricate web of rivers. Although the country is highly prone to flooding, the use of state-of-the-art deep learning models in predicting river water levels to aid flood forecasting is underexplored. Deep learning and attention-based models have shown high potential for accurately forecasting floods over space and time. The present study aims to develop a long short-term memory (LSTM) network and its attention-based architectures to predict flood water levels in the rivers of Bangladesh. The models developed in this study incorporated gauge-based water level data over 7 days for flood prediction at Dhaka and Sylhet stations. This study developed five models: artificial neural network (ANN), LSTM, spatial attention LSTM (SALSTM), temporal attention LSTM (TALSTM), and spatiotemporal attention LSTM (STALSTM). The multiple imputation by chained equations (MICE) method was applied to address missing data in the time series analysis. The results showed that the use of both spatial and temporal attention together increases the predictive performance of the LSTM model, which outperforms other attention-based LSTM models. The STALSTM-based flood forecasting system, developed in this study, could inform flood management plans to accurately predict floods in Bangladesh and elsewhere

A Food Frequency Questionnaire for Hemodialysis Patients in Bangladesh (BDHD-FFQ): Development and Validation

Diet is a recognized risk factor and cornerstone for chronic kidney disease (CKD) management; however, a tool to assess dietary intake among Bangladeshi dialysis patients is scarce. This study aims to validate a prototype Bangladeshi Hemodialysis Food Frequency Questionnaire (BDHD-FFQ) against 3-day dietary recall (3DDR) and corresponding serum biomarkers. Nutrients of interest were energy, macronutrients, potassium, phosphate, iron, sodium and calcium. The BDHD-FFQ, comprising 132 food items, was developed from 606 24-h recalls and had undergone face and content validation. Comprehensive facets of relative validity were ascertained using six statistical tests (correlation coefficient, percent difference, paired t-test, cross-quartiles classification, weighted kappa, and Bland-Altman analysis). Overall, the BDHD-FFQ showed acceptable to good correlations (p 0.05). Cross-quartile classification indicated that <10% of patients were incorrectly classified. Weighted kappa statistics showed agreement with all but iron. Bland-Altman analysis showed positive mean differences were observed for all nutrients when compared to 3DDR, whilst energy, carbohydrates, fat, iron, sodium, and potassium had percentage data points within the limit of agreement (mean ± 1.96 SD), above 95%. In summary, the BDHD-FFQ demonstrated an acceptable relative validity for most of the nutrients as four out of the six statistical tests fulfilled the cut-off standard in assessing dietary intake of CKD patients in Bangladesh

Topical delivery of anthramycin II:Influence of binary and ternary solvent systems

Anthramycin (ANT) is a member of the pyrolobenzodiazepine family and is a potent cytotoxic agent. Previously, we reported the topical delivery of ANT from a range of solvents that may also act as skin penetration enhancers (SPEs). The skin penetration and uptake was monitored for simple solutions of ANT in propylene glycol (PG), dipropylene glycol (DiPG), Transcutol P (TC), isopropyl myristate (IPM), propylene glycol monocaprylate (PGMC) and propylene glycol monolaurate (PGML). The amounts of PG, DiPG and TC that were taken up by, and that penetrated the skin were also measured, with a clear dependence of ANT penetration on the rate and extent of PG and TC permeation. The present work investigates ANT skin delivery from a range of binary and ternary systems to determine any potential improvement in skin uptake compared with earlier results for the neat solvents. Following miscibility and stability studies a total of eight formulations were taken forward for evaluation in human skin in vitro. Binary systems of PG and water did not result in any skin permeation of ANT. Combining PG with either PGMC or PGML did promote skin penetration of ANT but no significant improvement was evident compared with PG alone. More complex ternary systems based on PG, DiPG, PGMC, PGML and water also did not show significant improvements on ANT permeation, compared with single solvents. Total skin penetration and retention of ANT ranged from 1 to 6% across all formulations studied. Where ANT was delivered to the receptor phase there were also high amounts of PG permeation with >50% and ~35% PG present for the binary systems and ternary vehicles respectively. These findings along with our previous paper confirm PG as a suitable solvent / SPE for ANT either alone or in combination with PGML or PGMC. The results also underline the necessity for empirical testing to determine whether or not a vehicle is acting as a SPE for a specific active in a topical formulation