Health Insurance for Government Employees in Bangladesh: A Concept Paper

Introducing compulsory health insurance for government employees bears immense importance for stepping towards universal healthcare coverage in Bangladesh. Lack of scientific study on designing such scheme, in the Bangladesh context, motivates this paper. The study aims at designing a comprehensive insurance package simultaneously covering health, life and accident related disability risks of the public employees, where the health component would extend to all dependent family members. We mainly analyzed, due to lack of data on the target population for actuarial calculation, the MIS data of group health insurance schemes (offered to various corporate houses) of some reputed insurance companies in Bangladesh. In addition, we consulted with various stakeholders including insurance companies and Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority. Our predicted loading costs including inflationary factor ranges from 10-15 percent. We have outlined the structure of a contributory and cashless health insurance scheme for the public servants and their eligible family members initially for a block period of 5 years. This offers a comprehensive list of surgical and no-surgical inpatient care (including complicated maternal care) available in the public hospitals and empanelled private hospitals. The coverage includes pre-existing illnesses, but excludes dental and ophthalmic care. The scheme offers a benefit of 5 Lakh Taka for covering all medical costs (excluding transport charges) of inpatient care for a block period of 5 years and 5 Lakh Taka for death benefit. The estimated premium is 500 Taka per month (400 Taka per month for health insurance and 100 Taka per month for life and accident related disability insurance).The hospitalization benefit is on a floater basis i.e. the total coverage can be availed of individually or collectively by the employees and their eligible family members during the said block period with no restriction on the number of times of availing. Subscription may be deducted from salary or medical allowance. If the spouse is also a government employee then subscription may be deducted from one of them. Some infrastructural constraints need to be addressed while introducing the scheme. These, for example, are capacity constraints of public hospitals; lack of provision of local fund in the public hospitals for regular maintenance of medical equipment and continuous supply of reagents for diagnostic tests to smoothen the services and increasing quality of care; provision of sufficient amount of all necessary drugs in the public hospitals; lack of an effective referral chain in the public hospitals; capacity constraints of the existing insurance companies; and lack of third party administrator (TPA). Establishing a powerful autonomous body is also crucial, due to capacity constraints of the existing insurance companies, to carry the risk of such a big pool of population. The main role of this body is to manage insurance fund, carry the risk and to monitor and supervise the health services to be provided under the scheme. The role of the insurance companies may be limited to claim settlement, issuing of smart card, etc

Vision Based Multi Sensor Feedback System For Robot System With Intelligent

This research studies the machine vision system and how it may be integrated to assist a robot system with artificial intelligent (Al). This research focuses on building a vision based feedback system for robotics application that consists of image processor and two vision-based sensor devices. A robot manipulator controller will drive a single arm industrial robot according to the input from vision system. The feedback system also feeds the Artificial Intelligent program necessary information to make the right decision, which is based on rules of a popular game, Tic-Tac-Toe. One of the advantages of this research is that it only uses a low resolution camera and image processing software generated by the algorithms itself without additional sensors such as sonar or IR sensor. This research developed an improved technique for object recognition and space occupancies determination which not affected by the orientation of the subject. This project also implements colored object recognition technique using its color and size without edge detection process along with a self-calibration technique for detecting object location without any parameter of the camera by using only two reference points. Finally, a set of experiments to validate the proposed algorithms has been conducted. The algorithms function with success rate from 74% up to 100% and could handle the orientation of a tilted object up to 45 degrees. The result from this research may be used in manufacturing plant for a robot system equipped with machine vision and artificial intelligent

Asymmetric Shocks and Co-movement of Price Indices

This paper is an attempt to gauge the relationship between the long run paths of consumer price index and wholesale price index of Pakistan. For the empirical analysis the Johansen co-integration technique has been applied on monthly data (1978 to 2010) of WPI and CPI. This paper found that both the indices are co-integrated in the long run. Thus the deviations in movements of WPI and CPI in the short run are transitory and both the indices will converge to their coherent path in the long run. Therefore, inflation computed from CPI can be used as official measure of inflation without worrying for short run movements of WPI.Price Level, Time Series Models, Monetary Policy

Problem-based learning in facilities planning: a pilot implementation

In Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Problem Based Learning (PBL) is proposed as an alternative to lectures in moulding engineering graduates to acquire attributes that are required to excel in today’s k-economy. To investigate if PBL is viable for undergraduates in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, a pilot implementation of PBL in Facilities Planning, a subject required for final year Mechanical Engineering undergraduates with specialization in Industrial Engineering was executed. With 60 students in the class, the whole syllabus of the subject was covered using three main PBL problems. PBL was conducted with the help of industrial partners: a semiconductor company, and a furniture factory. The outcome of the implementation was highly encouraging. Students were able to illustrate good understanding of the content, while progressively exhibiting maturity in their generic skills, such as communication, team-working, self-directed learning and problem-solving. However, several aspects of the execution can be further improved

Study on methods used by Scope International (M) Sdn. Bhd. in improving employee’s performance / Syed Muhammad Atik Wafa Syed Abdul Hamid

This research was conducted to determine the factors that can contribute to the employee performance in their workplace. The main objective of this research is to study on the factors influencing employee performance in the organization. At the same time, the study was conducted to identify the methods used that contribute to the job performance in a high and deficient way. The study was conducted at Trade Department Scope International (M) Sdn. Bhd. The research was a qualitative research and the data used for the study was collected using the communication approach through the Interview and journals. With the data collected and commitment given by staff of this organization, the result from the study does support statement which stated that job performance has positive relation with methods used to improve it. But then, the major factor that contributes to the employee poor performance are workloads, long working hours and lack of formal training. Therefore, from the finding we can say that employee job performance is not only influence by the employee based causes but also influence by the organization based causes. So both factors actually play a vital part in order to help management to expand the profitability of the company as well as employee to develop their skill knowledge and attitude

Effects of palm oil supplementation in broiler diets

A study was conducted to determine the effects of varying palm oil levels (0 to 8%) in the diets on the performance of broilers under the warm humid tropical environment. Increasing palm oil levels resulted in corresponding rise in the dietary energy concentrations, and broilers fed on higher energy diets improved feed and energy consumption, daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio. Total carcass fat content was found to increase at higher levels of palm oil inclusions

Detection and Forecasting of Islamic Calendar Effects in Time Series Data: Revisited

This paper is an attempt to revisit the pioneering work of Riazuddin and Khan (2002). A complete business cycle has been elapsed (2002-2010) since their study, so there is need to review the results with additional information. This revisited attempt, based on a theoretically specified framework, arrived at similar results and found significant impact of Islamic calendar. The Islamic months of Ramadan and Zilhaj have positive impact on currency holdings and negative impact on deposits. Although stylized facts indicate that consumer prices are significantly higher during Ramadan but econometric investigation rejects the upward exogenous shifts in prices during Ramadan. Therefore, structural relationship analyzed in co-integration framework has shown that inflation is not directly impacted by the Ramadan but indirectly through increase in its determinants. Inflationary tendencies during Ramadan are not due to exogenous increase by producers and retailers but possibly due to demand surge in the wake of redistribution of income. The months of June and December have positive effects on deposits and negative effects on currency in circulation indicating the presence of window dressing. Finally, as seasonal factors have important role in determining economic time series, therefore, ignoring those in monthly time series models will lead to omitted variable bias and inappropriate forecasts.currency in circulation, deposits, cointegration, seasonal factors

Article: An Indian Captive in Germany

This is the first of two articles in which Major General Syed Ali Hamid writes about captivity during the Second World War – this article is about Anis Ahmed Khan, an Indian officer held as a Prisoner of War in Germany for five years. This text is part of a digital images collection, The Unremembered: Indian Soldiers of World War II by Professor Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, available at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/wwii-indian-soldiers