From Birangona to Barangona: Plight and Tragedy of a War Heroine in Letters of Blood

This paper aims to examine the relationship between a Birangona, and the men of a patriarchal social system in Rizia Rahman's novel Rokter Okkhor (1978), translated into English as Letters of Blood (2016) by Arunava Sinha. It also explores the notion of honor as it is awarded to the war heroines and how the notion quickly changes into an idea of stigma as Barangona, which means prostitute. Yasmin, the protagonist of this novel, goes through traumatic experiences of being raped, ravaged, and tormented for a few months during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. After the war of independence, the state honors her as a 'War Heroine' for her sufferings and sacrifices. Looking through the lenses of social stigma and capitalist patriarchy, this paper argues that Yasmin falls doubly victim to the grasp of the patriarchal system and ideology, and her state-awarded "honor" turns into a "stigma"; consequently, she goes through social humiliation, rejection, and violation. Furthermore, this paper also demonstrates that the men deny her the inalienable right to live an everyday life and she is pushed to a tragic journey from a war heroine to be a whore

Effect of Temporal Instability of Factors Contributing to Single-Vehicle Crash Severity--a Mixed Logit Approach

This study investigates the factors associated with single-vehicle crash injury severity using five years (2014 – 2018) of crash data from Kentucky, USA, using a mixed (random-parameter) logit model. We also explore the temporal heterogeneity of the correlated factors across different times of the day. Most crash-severity models assume that the estimated parameters remain temporally stable. For instance, the effect of light conditions on crash severity may differ based on the time of the crash occurrence—noon vs. dusk. The temporal instability of the factors due to the time-of-day variation can lead to (under) overestimating the parameters that influence the development and implementation of safety countermeasures—crash modification factors and safety performance functions. To account for the temporal variations and associated instability, we estimated crash severity models for five periods of the day: 12 am – 5 am, 5 am – 9 am, 9 am – 2 pm, 2 pm – 7 pm, and 7 pm – 12 am. Each model considers five crash injury-severity outcomes: (a) fatal, (b) suspected serious injury, (c) suspected minor injury, (d) possible injury, and (e) property-damage only (as defined by the Kentucky State Police). Log-likelihood tests confirm the statistical validity of the time-of-day grouping of the crash severity models. The Chi-Square test-statistic indicates the significance of using five different models instead of a single aggregate model for the dataset. The used dataset is a collection of police crash investigation reports, and these reports were prepared after the crashes have occurred. So, data on traffic volume/ADT/AADT were not used for this study. Further, the pseudo direct elasticity values are estimated to find the sensitivity of the explanatory variables—how much change in the probability of different injury outcomes. Explanatory variables such as age, gender, and lighting condition are incorporated into the models to examine the associated effects. Results show that being a female driver increases the probability of fatal injury by 76.85% for crashes occurring in the 5 am to 9 am window. Also, being a driver within the age-group of 50 years or more increases fatality probability by 49.07% for crashes occurring from 2 pm to 7 pm. Alcohol-involvement significantly increases the probability of fatal and severe injury in all the models (five-time periods). Further, our estimated results indicate that icy road surface, losing control of vehicles, and oversteering have a temporally stable effect (do not change across different time-of-the-day models) and are found to have a positive correlation with fatality and severe injury severity outcomes. On the other hand, variables such as drivers younger than 25 years, male drivers, streetlights turned on exhibit varying influence on the injury-severity outcome at different times of a day. The findings of this research can be used to develop (and calibrate) Safety Performance Functions (SPF) and Crash Modification Factors (CMF) for the State of Kentucky. The time-of-day analyses will make the SPFs and CMFs more robust and flexible by accommodating temporal heterogeneity in the factors correlated with single-vehicle crash severity

Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Economic Growth of the SAARC Countries

Empirical evidence suggests FDI has both growth enhancing and growth diminishing impact on the economic growth. The endogenous growth model supports the view that FDI has significant impact on improving human capital, managerial skills, research and development which in effect improve economic growth. However, “The dependency school theory” argues that importing foreign capital from developed countries is harmful in the long-run for the developing economies. This in effect causes distortion, hinders growth, and increases income inequality in developing countries. In this context, the impact of FDI on economic growth of SAARC and its member states has been investigated. For the purpose of investigation positivism philosophy, deductive approach and cross-sectional research design has been employed. Secondary data for the period of 2000-2014 for FDI (independent variable) and GDP, Total export, Inflation (dependent variables) has been collected from UNCTADstat database and analysed using correlation and regression analysis. The finding shows that FDI has significant impact on economic growth of SAARC region. For individual member states FDI is also found to be a significant factor for accelerating economic growth for all the countries with exception for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Therefore, this research recommends taking more initiative by the individual countries to attract more FDI through making FDI friendly policies, reducing tax and tariffs to accelerate economic growth. Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment, Economic growth, SAARC econom

The Effect of Management by Objectives on Performance Appraisal and Employee Satisfaction in Commercial Banks

Management by Objectives (MBO) is one of the most effective performance appraisal method widely used in the organization. This study deals with the effect of Management by Objectives on performance appraisal and employee satisfaction.  A self-administered questionnaire was used to judge the perception of the employees regarding MBO and its effect on their performance appraisal and employee satisfaction. The number of participants included in the survey was 60 employees from 33 commercial banks at Rajshahi Division in Bangladesh. This study aims to identify the respondent’s demographic profile such as age, education, salary, and banking experience and reveals the importance of MBO on their performance appraisal and employee satisfaction. IBM SPSS v23.0 program has been used to analyze the questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and Regression analysis used to test the hypotheses. Econometric results suggest that MBO should be used as a method of performance appraisal and most of the commercial banks use Management by Objectives as an effective tool. In our correlation analysis we found performance appraisal and employee satisfaction have a significant positive relationship (r=0.715). Performance appraisal increase employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction increase productivity and effectiveness in the organization. Proper reward mechanism increase satisfaction level of the employees. Keywords: Commercial Banks, Employee Satisfaction, Management by Objectives, Organizational Effectiveness and Performance Appraisal. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-20-02 Publication date:July 31st 202

Literature review of recent, practical - oriented computer networks papers

This thesis report is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis report.Includes bibliographical references (page 61).This thesis will include a literature review of recent practical oriented computer networks papers in premier IEEE conferences. The objective of the thesis is to provide detailed plans for a number of computer network related projects that may be implemented by subsequent BRAC University students. We will do an in-depth study of the selected topics and provide a step by step implementation process.Hasibul IslamHassan SameerIrtiza Ahmad FarooqB. Electrical and Electronic Engineerin

Investigating rural and urban differences in single-vehicle crash severity determinants: a time-of-day analysis using random parameter models

Master of ScienceDepartment of Civil EngineeringChristopher A. JonesThis study investigates the factors associated with single-vehicle crash injury severity accounting for urban-rural differences and time-of-day variations. We estimate mixed (random-parameter) logit models (with the pseudo direct elasticity values) using five-year (2014 – 2018) crash data for five periods of the day: 12 am – 5 am, 5 am – 9 am, 9 am – 2 pm, 2 pm – 7 pm, and 7 pm – 12 am. Log-likelihood tests confirm the statistical validity of the time-of-day grouping of the crash severity models and the urban-rural separation. Our results indicate variations in effects of factors across time-of-day (e.g., rural roads with ice increase the probability of serious injury for 9 am – 2 pm and 2 pm – 7 pm models and increase fatality probability for the 9 am – 2 pm model; rural road crashes involving oversteering by drivers increases the probability of serious injury for the 12 am – 5 am model, and the 5 am – 9 am models. This variable is found to decrease the probability of serious injury for the 9 am – 2 pm model and for the 7 pm – 12 am model; female drivers in rural crash models are found to be less prone to fatality except for the 12 am to 5 am model, and the effect of this variable is found as random in the 5 am – 9 am, 9 am – 2 pm and 2 pm – 7 pm models. The findings of this research can be applied to improve state-specific Crash Modification Factors (CMFs) and Safety Performance Functions (SPFs)

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices: A Study on Foreign Commercial Banks in Bangladesh

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important portion of an enterprise, bank or other industry. Corporate social responsibility increases the growth and success of a firm. Corporate Social Responsibility means responsibility for the people of the society about the country. The development of a society or a country happens only when the financial institutions like the bank of the country properly maintain their corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between corporate social responsibility and customer perceptions towards the corporations. In our paper, we discussed the theoretical framework of the CSR. The theoretical framework includes bright sides of the CSR and limitations of the CSR. We also analyze 5 commercial banks Bank Al- Falah, Habib Bank Ltd., HSBC, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, and Standard Chartered Banks CSR contribution in corporate social responsibility. We compare their contribution in 2018 and 2019 year. We see that some areas of contribution decrease in 2019 as compared to 2018. There is no contribution to infrastructure development. At last, we recommend foreign commercial banks to increase CSR contribution in some specific areas. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Foreign Commercial Banks, Social Contribution, Welfare. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-21-16 Publication date:July 31st 202

Adoption of lean philosophy in car dismantling companies in Sweden-a case study

At present, Lean manufacturing techniques are widely used in industries to improve the productivity by reducing different types of wastes. A case study has been conducted to investigate how Lean techniques can contribute in car dismantling companies in Sweden. This study gained insight of how car dismantling companies can be benefitted by adopting Lean philosophy. Some eccentric characteristics of this business which act as boundary condition for implementing Lean in Production Planning and control system were also identified