Design, Fabrication and Characterization of Capacitively Coupled Silicon-Organic Hybrid Modulators

Silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) modulators [1] offer fast and efficient electro-optic modulation with very small footprints. Traditional SOH modulators suffer from bandwidth limitation due to the higher RC time constant that originates from the resistive coupling of the RF signal. In the current thesis, we propose a new modulator concept establishing a capacitive coupling of the RF signal as opposed to the resistive one in the conventional SOH modulators and hence the name capacitively coupled SOH (CC-SOH) modulator. A high-κ dielectric, BaT iO3 is characterized in optical and in RF regime and later used to design capacitively coupled SOH modulator. The fabicated CCSOH is characterized to have a flat frequency response up to 65 GHz indicating that the 3-dB bandwidth is at least 3 times higher than the SOH modulators

Decentralized rural water supply and sanitation services in Bangladesh: a critical overview

The devolution approach pursued by the HYSAWA Fund project has been considered for replication all over the country. By November 2010, 317 Union Parishads (UPs) have become capable of procuring services using Public Procurement Rules and preparing schemes in the area of hygiene, sanitation and water supply. They have installed nearly 16,000 water points providing access to safe water to some 1.3 million people with a significant proportion of poor and hard core poor. Breaking the traditional dilemma of UP performance they prove to be capable of utilizing funds for development activities following government rules and procedures independently. With only one functionary or staff member (Secretary) it is in fact very challenging to ensure proper implementation of development interventions. It is imperative that the UPs be provided with adequate number of functionaries along with required funds and authorities

Local partnership approach for urban development in Bangladesh: a comparative study of four participatory urban development projects

Support for Implementation of National Plans of Action or SINPA is a programme that aims to implement some of the ideas of Habitat II and National Plans of Action for Human Settlements by supporting efforts of pilot cities and disseminating the results. SINPA activities are carried out in three countries, Bangladesh, Bolivia and Zambia in three continents. Apart from these three programmes in three countries, SINPA also has a core programme at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, responsible for overall coordination of the country specific programmes, research and dissemination. Under this core programme, a third country research component was designed to conduct a joint research together with a local research institute. There were two considerations for undertaking this research. First, the subject matter of the research should be relevant for the ongoing programmes in the three SINPA countries, as well as being suitable for wider international dissemination. And second, the selection criteria for the research subject should be manageable in such a manner that adequate secondary data and documentations are available to make the study feasible within budget and time limits. The responsibility of the present study on “Local Partnership Approach for Urban Development in Bangladesh” has been given by IHS to the Centre for Urban Studies, Dhaka, under the SINPA Core Programme Research Component

The Financial Expert Margayya's Strive to New Identity: An Echo of His Own World

Reading R. K. Narayan certainly leads the South-Asian readers to the home and bosom of his own country people. It sparks a sense of Indianness provided with his own taste, flavour and recognition of a rich cultural inheritance. Narayan’s presentation of Indian ways of life gets a meticulous and painstaking regard for verisimilitude. His wonderful creation, The Financial Expert, is not an exception being a veritable goldmine for anyone interested in India and its culture. At the heart of the novel is the landscape of India, the customs, conventions and lores that are the quintessence of Indianness. Building up a new nation parallels with searching and adjusting a new identity of an Indian. Narayan's protagonist, in the book, is forced to transcend the age-old customs and traditions of the society and embrace his new identity which he cannot do without echoing his own world. Finally he discovers himself and comes back to his root. This paper attempts at examining Narayan's creation of a soul which strives for adaptability only to restart a new stride. Keywords: Strive, Identity, Own World, Karma, Indianness, Tradition

Motivational Factors Influencing on Job Satisfaction: A Case Study on Private Commercial Banking Sector in Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Now a day, bank is a more attractive and profitable business organization in Bangladesh. For the past few decades, numerous studies attempted to explore the relative importance of understanding job satisfaction. Realizing the need to sustain in the banking industry, this study was conducted for exploring the antecedents to the strengthening of job satisfaction. This report is designed for identifying the “Motivational factors influencing on job satisfaction: A case study on private banking sector in Bangladesh.” It is a descriptive study based on the primary and secondary data. Five Private Commercial Banks namely NRBC Bank Ltd. (8 respondent), NCC Bank Ltd. (8 respondent), One Bank Ltd. (8 respondent), Mercantile Bank Ltd. (8 respondent), Islami Bank Ltd. (8 respondent) are considered to conduct the study. 40 sample sizes are dispersed to collect the data, for the consequence of the study researcher considered some factors. Moreover, those factors are taken under the close ended questionnaire and find out the data from sample and to analyze the quantitative data, the researcher explored the internal structure and measurement by using percentage format and tabulation form. Researcher has used five likert scales for rating employee’s job satisfaction. Then researcher has calculated the percentage of each question answer and find out the result. Aggregately 47% of the employees are highly satisfied and it is the highest portion of employees on the level of job satisfaction. Very dissatisfied portion is lowest. Therefore, it can say that most of the private commercial bank employees are satisfied on their job. After considering above factors researcher identify that Salary structure, Management policy and Job environment  are motivated private bank employees more than other factors and researcher recommend that private bank authority should be more concentration on the above factors those make their employee more satisfied towards their job and reduce the tendency of  switching over. Keywords: Motivational factors, job satisfaction, Salary, reward system, promotion and job environment

Experience of a hygiene project in Bangladesh: institutional learning

This paper, from practitioners’ point of view, draws some institutional lessons based on implementation experiences on a hygiene project- “Environmental Sanitation, Hygiene and Water Supply in Rural Areas” that aims at improving environmental sanitation and personal hygiene behavior at both households and community levels. Having analyzed the dynamics, strategies, implementation mechanism and institutional framework of the project it reveals that Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) being a government department has transformed itself as facilitator from its traditional role of implementer. It is worth mentioning that DPHE has been allocating government resources based on community action plans that have incorporated community needs and priorities regarding sanitation and hygiene. The success of the project lies in the fact that local government institutions have become interested to shoulder the responsibilities to bring positive changes towards environmental sanitation. This success is attributed to institutional framework that is worth to be replicated elsewhere

Process proved product: a case of hygiene project in Bangladesh

This paper deals with a Hygiene Project in Bangladesh, financially supported by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), technically assisted by the UNICEF and implemented by the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) of the Government of Bangladesh. The project work started in November 2002 and ended in December 2005. The purpose of the project was to improve hygiene practice and behaviour, especially for the poor, and to contribute to reducing mortality, morbidity and malnutrition caused by poor sanitation and unsafe water related diseases, especially among women and children. The project adopted some participatory mechanisms that helped communities take the lead in planning, implementation and monitoring of the project activities. The project focused much on the community processes that led the community to achieve the project goal as the communities are at the centre of changing their own behaviour on a sustainable basis

The relationship between HRM practices, leadership style, affective commitment and informal workplace learning

Informal workplace learning is considered as one of the progressively important issues in the contemporary global business environment. Although informal workplace learning is an important issue, there is a lack of such learning in private commercial banks (PCBs) in Bangladesh. Based on the theory of situated learning which argues that organizational factors and personal factors influence workplace learning, the study aimed to examine the relationship between human resource management practices (HRM), leadership style and informal workplace learning. The study also considered the mediating effect of affective commitment on this relationship. A quantitative research technique was applied and a structured questionnaire was used as the research instrument. A cross sectional survey design was adopted and the unit of analysis was employees working as head of department in branches of PCBs. The study employed the probability sampling technique, with a sample size of 381. The Partial Least Squares to Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was applied for analyzing the data. The findings suggest that HRM practices such as selective hiring, extensive training, performance appraisal, compensation practices, empowerment, information sharing and leadership style such as transformational leadership style are the strong predictors of informal workplace learning. Employment security and promotion opportunities have no significant impact on informal workplace learning. In addition to that, affective commitment mediates the relationship between HRM practices such as, extensive training, compensation practices, promotion opportunities, empowerment, information sharing and informal workplace learning. Similarly, affective commitment also mediates the relationship between transactional leadership style and informal workplace learning. Based on the empirical evidences, practitioners and policy makers should pay more attention to HRM practices and leadership style for enhancing informal workplace learning