Job Analysis and Performance Management in Pakistan Army: A Strategic Human Resource Management Perspective

The article discusses Human Resource Management practices in Pakistan’s highly acknowledged institutions as far as discipline and adherence to rules and processes is concerned. The study specially focuses on the role of Job Analysis and its impact on Performance Management i.e. how important Job Analysis is for effective Performance Management and other Human Resource Management practices. Moreover, the researchers attempt to explore whether or not a strategic fit exists between Organizational Objectives and Human Resource Practices in the Pakistan Army. Data collection technique used in the study is that of face to face semi-structured interviews of 22 Army officials of different ranks. The article concludes with few generic recommendations (lessons) for other public sector organizations or governmental institutions as well. Keywords: Strategic Human Resource Management, Job Analysis, Performance Management, Public Sector Organization, Pakistan Army

Relations Between 4-H Enrollment and Selected Characteristics of Tennessee\u27s County 4-H Extension Programs

The study was concerned with the problem of decreasing county 4-H enrollment in Tennessee. Twenty-one independent variables concerning the characteristics of Tennessee\u27s county 4-H Extension programs and five independent variables concerning total 4-H enrollment were studied. The independent variables were classified under the headings of 4-H leadership, organization, participation, place of 4-H member residence, potential number of 4-H members, and number of Extension staff members. The purpose was to identify the association between the selected variables concerning county 4-H programs and the total 4-H enrollment in the Tennessee counties. Another purpose was to determine which variable, within each group of 4-H Extension program variables, accounted for the highest percent of variation in the number of 4-H members enrolled per county. It was found that total 4-H enrollment in the ninety-five Tennessee counties was directly related to each of the following variables: total number of adult 4-H leaders, total number of junior 4-H club leaders, total number of basic four organizations, total number of 4-H all stars, total number of honor club members, total number of 4-H senior clubs, total number of junior 4-H clubs, total number of 4-H clubs, average number of senior 4-H members per senior club, total number of senior 4-H district winners, total number of 4-H members participating in 4-H judging and in 4-H camp, total number of full-time Extension staff equivalents responsible for 4-H work, and total number of Extension staff members per county. The variables, within each group of county 4-H program variables, which accounted for the largest percents of variation in total county 4-H enrollment were: total number of junior 4-H leaders (50 percent), total number of 4-H clubs per county (60 percent), total number of 4-H members per county participating in 4-H camp (31 percent), total number of 4-H members per county residing on farm (55 percent), total number of full-time Extension staff equivalents per county (54 percent). Variables under potential number of 4-H members were not significantly relates with enrollment. It was implied that 4-H enrollment in Tennessee counties might tend to increase if either the number of 4-H leaders, number of 4-H clubs, number of members participating in 4-H events and activities, and/or the number of full-time Extension staff equivalents responsible for 4-H work increased. Implications for program emphasis were made

Effect of Empowerment on Job Satisfaction: A Study of Software Sector of Pakistan

A continuing issue that maneuvers researchers in software projects is what encourages employees to perform  well and make contributions to the projects. Prior studies have mainly focused on other behavioral factors but we propose that empowerment plays a crucial role in boosting employees’ performance. A survey has been conducted via self-administered questionnaire to test perceptions of employees working on various software projects regarding empowerment practices and their perceived task performance. Two types of empowerment have been studied in the present study. Moreover, limitations and implications have also been discussed. Keywords: Software sector, empowerment, structural empowerment, psychological empowerment, Job performance

Effect of Empowerment on Job Satisfaction: A Study of Software Sector of Pakistan

A continuing issue that maneuvers researchers in software projects is what encourages employees to perform well and make contributions to the projects. Prior studies have mainly focused on other behavioral factors but we propose that empowerment plays a crucial role in boosting employees’ performance. A survey has been conducted via self-administered questionnaire to test perceptions of employees working on various software projects regarding empowerment practices and their perceived task performance. Two types of empowerment have been studied in the present study. Moreover, limitations and implications have also been discussed. Keywords: Software sector, empowerment, structural empowerment, psychological empowerment, Job performanc

THE CHALLENGE FOR DETERMINATION OF GLOBAL FRAUD LOSS – A QUALITATIVE STUDY

The high profile fraud incidents have captured the attention of people around the world about the real cost of accounting fraud. The business world is undeniably brimmed with scams and frauds that removed illegitimately billions of dollars. With the increasing number of high-profile scandals, the topic of fraud has attracted unprecedented attention in recent history. The direct losses from fraud and the impact of fraud have grown significantly and simply too costly which conveniently cannot be overlooked. Accordingly, the implications for the global determination of fraud loss has gained ground and has risen to prominence during recent years. The present study aims to examine why it is crucial to measure economic crimes or fraud and how the figure of global fraud loss can be quantifiable. Assessing and identifying the scale of loss from fraud is an important first step toward building a strategy for combating fraud. Equally important to developing a methodology for the accurate measurement of fraud loss globally. This paper explores how a better measurement is critical to a properly designed and strategic response to fraud. Better measurement of global fraud loss can provide a benchmark for exercising anti-fraud strategies, how the programs and activities can work to advantage. How to overcome data quality of global fraud loss and how to ensure the accuracy in exercising the collection methodologies. The methodology applied in this study is a qualitative case study method. The qualitative approach is aimed to determine, define, and investigate research problems. There is no denying the truth that there is no consistent and robust measure across global jurisdictions for determining fraud loss and error. The objective of measuring global fraud and error can be accomplished by implementing and legislating a global standard. The proposed changes are being envisaged as a guide to a global standard to measure the global loss from fraud

Dengue fever presenting as quadriparesis due to hypokalaemia: a rare presentation

Dengue is one of the leading causes of arthropod borne viral haemorrhagic fever. Majority of the times, it clinically manifests as fever, arthralgia and rash; however, we present a case of a young man who presented with progressively increasing weakness of all four limbs. Initial investigations showed low potassium, hence he was managed as hypokalaemic periodic paralysis. With initial history of fever and low platelets, dengue was suspected. Dengue antibody was checked which came out to be positive. Potassium was replaced which led to improvement in power of his limbs. He was discharged in a stable condition with a diagnosis of dengue with hypokalaemic quadriparesis

Predicting noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) in TNB workers using GDAM algorithm

Noise is a form of a pollutant that is terrorizing the occupational health experts for many decades due to its adverse side-effects on the workers in the industry. Noise�Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) handicap is one out of many health hazards caused due to excessive exposure to high frequency noise emitted from the machines. A number of studies have been carried-out to find the significant factors involved in causing NIHL in industrial workers using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Despite providing useful information on hearing loss, these studies have neglected some important factors. The traditional Back-propagation Neural Network (BPNN) is a supervised Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) algorithm. It is widely used in solving many real time problems in world. But BPNN possesses a problem of slow convergence and network stagnancy. Previously, several modifications were suggested to improve the convergence rate of Gradient Descent Back-propagation algorithm such as careful selection of initial weights and biases, learning rate, momentum, network topology, activation function and ‘gain’ value in the activation function. This research proposed an algorithm for improving the current working performance of Back-propagation algorithm by adaptively changing the momentum value and at the same time keeping the ‘gain’ parameter fixed for all nodes in the neural network. The performance of the proposed method known as ‘Gradient Descent Method with Adaptive Momentum (GDAM)’ is compared with ‘Gradient Descent Method with Adaptive Gain (GDM-AG)’ (Nazri, 2007) and ‘Gradient Descent with Simple Momentum (GDM)’ by performing simulations on classification problems. The results show that GDAM is a better approach than previous methods with an accuracy ratio of 1.0 for classification problems like ix Thyroid disease, Heart disease, Breast Cancer, Pima Indian Diabetes, Wine Quality, Australian Credit-card approval problem and Mushroom problem. The efficiency of the proposed GDAM is further verified by means of simulations on Noise-Induced Hearing loss (NIHL) audiometric data obtained from Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). The proposed GDAM shows improved prediction results on both ears and will be helpful in improving the declining health condition of industrial workers in Malaysia. At present, only few studies have emerged to predict NIHL using ANN but have failed to achieve high accuracy. The achievements made by GDAM has paved way for indicating NIHL in workers before it becomes severe and cripples him or her for life. GDAM is also helpful in educating the blue collared employees to avoid noisy environments and remedies against exposure to excessive noise can be taken in the future to prevent hearing damage

Young man with severe metabolic acidosis after transformer oil ingestion: a case report

Background: Transformer oil is used in oil-filled transformers for its insulating as well as coolant properties. Transformer oil ingestion for attempted suicide is seldom heard of. Our patient’s case presented us with a major diagnostic as well as treatment challenge because we encountered such a case for the first time and were totally unaware of the fact that methanol might make up the main component of an aged transformer oil. Case presentation: A 19-year-old Pakistani/Asian man was brought to our hospital with altered sensorium. He was found to have elevated anion gap acidosis, increased osmolal gap, and acute kidney injury. He had no evidence of rhabdomyolysis or hemolysis. Computed tomography of his head showed cerebral edema. He was resuscitated with intravenous fluids and bicarbonate. Three days later, he confessed taking transformer oil with suicidal intention. His clinical picture mimicked acute methanol intoxication. With an initial improvement in his neurological status, he started complaining of constant headache with episodes of agitation and delirium. His renal function continued worsening despite an adequate urine output. He showed a remarkable improvement in his neurological state after just one session of hemodialysis. Conclusions: There is evidence that aged transformer oil contains methanol, and a patient who consumes it can present with features mimicking acute methanol intoxication

Does Early Tracheostomy Improve Outcome in Severe Head Injury?

Object:  To determine if early tracheostomy reduces the duration of mechanical ventilation, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) stay and morbidities associated with it in patients with severe head injury. Methods:  This 5-yr retrospective review included 60 ICU patients with severe traumatic head injury requiring mechanical ventilation and tracheostomy. Early tracheostomy (ET) was defined as tracheostomy within 7 days, and prolonged endotracheal intubation (EI) as endotracheal intubation for more than 7 days. Among 60 patients, 30 underwent early tracheostomy and 30 remained on prolong EI for ventilation. All patients were comparable in term of age and initial Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). We evaluated groups regarding clinical outcome in terms of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), ICU stay and Glasgow Outcome Score (GOS). Results:  The incidence of Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) was significantly higher in prolonged Endotracheal Intubation EI group, relative to Early tracheostomy ET group (63% vs. 43%, respectively). ET group showed significantly less ventilator days (9 days vs. 12 days), ICU stay (10 days vs. 13 days), complication rate (13% vs. 18%) and mortality (10% vs.25%). Clinical outcome assessed on the basis of Glascow Outcome Score (GOS) was better in ET group. Conclusions:  In severe head injury early tracheostomy decreases total days of ventilation and ICU stay. Tracheostomy is associated with a decrease in the incidence of Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP). Early tracheostomy should be considered in severe head injury patients requiring prolong ventilatory support. &nbsp