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Background: Although the global thalassemia zone covers Bangladesh, there are very limited studies conducted in this region. Therefore, the focus of our study is to understand the prevalence and burden of thalassemia and hemoglobinopathy in Bangladesh. Methods: The analysis was based on a retrospective evaluation of laboratory diagnoses between 2007 January and 2021 October. A total of 8503 specimens were sampled and analyzed which were either referred by corresponding physicians or self-referred. This was neither any epidemiological nationwide survey nor was the study population chosen randomly. Hematological data were obtained through capillary zone electrophoresis and corresponding complete blood count. Results: 1971 samples (~23.18% of the total) were found with at least one inherited hemoglobin disorder. The most common hemoglobin disorder observed was the hemoglobin E (Hb E) trait (10.67%), followed by the β-thalassemia trait (8.4%), homozygotic Hb E (1.59%), and Hb E/β-thalassemia (1.58%). Other variants found in this study with minimal percentages were Hb N-Seattle, Hb S, Hb D-Punjab, Hb Lepore, Hb C, Hb Hope, Hb H, and hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin. Discussion: The pattern of thalassemia and hemoglobinopathy in our study is diverse and heterogeneous. A broad and detailed spectrum of such inherited hemoglobin disorders will ultimately be helpful in implementing nationwide thalassemia management and strategy policy in Bangladesh.

This article presents a current issue of Rohingya, stateless and migrant people who faced various problems in Bangladesh and state also faced problems to maintain them. In this regard this paper will provide some solution to overcome these problems. Bangladesh is currently hosting a large number of stateless people namely Rohingya from August 2017. Beside this the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 the Biharis were left behind are also treated as stateless and unprotected persons. At present all these people have suffered decades of violence, discrimination and persecution in a massive wave of violence broke out in Myanmar Rakhine State. Rohingya people have fled from Myanmar to seek refuge across the border in Bangladesh and among them 50% are children and they suffered from basic necessity. Bangladesh’s economy spends an estimated $1.21 billion a year supporting the Rohingya and also unemployed crisis and also involved in criminal activities like Yaba drug smuggling. Natural disaster like flooding, fires and Covid-19 has created also fresh challenges for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The natural disaster like covid- 19, flood, heavy monsoon, landslide in the camp is also creating a lot of sufferings of the Refugees. This paper will pave a way to overcome these challenges. It will be qualitative research. The information will be taken from many readings, articles, newspapers and books.

Migrant workers play a significant role to the economy and social development of Malaysia. Most of these employees are working at the construction industry which is known one of the highest hazardous working zones in the globe in terms of personal safety and health. The construction activities comprise various building performances, such as concreting, plastering, paving, bricklaying, painting and other related works. The local people are not much interested to work at this sector. Consequently, Malaysia requires hiring more foreign workers in order to continue the growing demands of building schemes. However, the working situations for those migrant workforces are often challenging but these do not hinder them from working. The aim of this study is to identify and examine some difficulties which are facing by migrant workers in Malaysia. The qualitative method has been used in gathering and analysing of data of this research. This research has found that migrant workers do not achieve some basic legal and humanitarian rights at construction sector in Malaysia. It is submitted that a proper step should be taken to minimise the identified challenges to protect the rights of migrant workers and to influence them to continue working at construction industries in Malaysia.

The dilemma of inheritance of grandchildren from the pre-deceased child is one of the most critical areas of Islamic law. According to the classical interpretations of Islamic law, any son of the deceased in general excludes such grandchildren. However, many states brought certain changes into the existing format of Islamic law of succession so as to shield such grandchildren from total exclusion. Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Morocco, Pakistan and Bangladesh are remarkable for binging changes in this particular area. Pakistan brought a significant change in 1961 by section 4 of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (MFLO), which is a milestone event in the history of reformation of Islamic law. In Bangladesh the same law become accepted through the promulgation of the Laws Continuance Enforcement order, 1971’.Section of the MFLO affected the whole structure of Islamic Law of Succession. The main contribution of this work is an attempt to draw the attention of the proper authority for taking steps to ensure the right of orphaned grandchildren and other heirs not violating the Islamic law of succession. For this purpose the author tries to show the injustices to some heirs and the provisions of Islamic law of succession which have been violated caused by the section 4 of MFLO and lastly the author has set up a method that ensures the right of the orphaned grandchildren neither violating the Islamic rule nor excluding any heir. It is a qualitative research.

Data mining is the science of extracting information or “knowledge” from data. It is a task commonly executed on cloud computing resources, personal computers and laptops. However, what about smartphones? Despite the fact that these ubiquitous mobile devices now offer levels of hardware and performance approaching that of laptops, locally executed model-training using data mining methods on smartphones is still notably rare. On-device model-training offers a number of advantages. It largely mitigates issues of data security and privacy, since no data is required to leave the device. It also ensures a self-contained, fully portable data mining solution requiring no cloud computing or network resources and able to operate in any location. In this article, we focus on the intersection of smartphones and data mining. We investigate the growth in smartphone performance, survey smartphone usage models in previous research, and look at recent developments in locally executed data mining on smartphones.

Background: Mechanical bowel preparation (MBP) for elective available colorectal surgical procedure has been practiced as a clinical routine for many decades. However, earlier randomized medical trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses endorse that MBP ought to be deserted earlier than colorectal surgical treatment due to the fact of the futility in decreasing postoperative problems and motility. The new published outcomes from three RCTs evaluating MBP with no MBP in colorectal surgical treatment in 2010 make the updating of systemic overview and meta-analysis necessary. Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the safety of colorectal surgery without mechanical bowel preparation. Methods: This is an observational study. The study used to be carried out in the admitted patient’s Department of Surgery Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, Rajshahi, Bangladesh. In Bangladesh for the duration of the period from June 2014 to May 2015. Results: This study shows that the according to age of 80 patients aged 20-above 51 years where, 4(10%) were 20-30 years, 10(25%) were 31-41 years, 10(25%) were 41-50 years, 16(40%) were 51 and above years in Group A, and 6(15%) were 20-30 years, 6(15%) were 31-40 years, 13(32.5%) were 41-50 years and 15(37.5%) were 51 and above years in Group B. And 28(70%) were males and 12(30%) were females in group A. And 27(67.5%) were males and 13(32.5%) were females in group B. Conclusions: Mechanical bowel preparation before elective colon and rectal surgery cannot prevent complications like anastomotic leakage, wound infection, intra-abdominal sepsis, abdominal abscess and extra abdominal complications.

Objective: To identify and analyze the clinical presentation, management and outcome of patients with acute mechanical bowel obstruction along with the etiology of obstruction and causes of bowel ischemia, necrosis, and perforation. Methods: This is a prospective observational study of adult patients admitted with acute mechanical bowel obstruction between September 2010 and August 2011. Results: Of the 100 patients included in the study, 73 (73%) presented with small bowel and 27 (27%) with large bowel obstruction. Absence of passage of flatus and/or feces (96%) and abdominal distension (92%) were the most common symptoms and physical finding, respectively. Adhesions (51%), incarcerated hernias (14%), Volvulus (14%) and large bowel cancer (12%) were the most frequent causes of obstruction. Sixty-seven patients (67%) were treated operatively and 33 (33%) were treated conservatively. Bowel ischemia was found in 20 cases (20%), necrosis in 13 (13%), and perforation in 3 (3%). Bands and adhesions, hernias, and volvulus, were the most frequent causes of bowel ischemia (65%, 20%, 10%), necrosis (38.46%, 23.08%, 38.46%), and perforation (33.33%, 33.33%, 33.33%). A comparatively higher risk of strangulation was noticed in incarcerated hernias and volvulus than bands and adhesions. Conclusion: Absence of passage of flatus and/or feces and abdominal distension are the most common symptoms and physical finding of patient'> with acute mechanical bowel obstruction, respectively. Adhesions, hernias, volvulus and large bowel cancer are the most common causes of obstruction, as well as of bowel ischemia, necrosis, and perforation. Although an important proportion of these patients can be non-operatively treated, a major portion requires immediate operation. Great caution should be taken for the treatment of these patients since the incidence of bowel ischemia, necrosis, and perforation is significantly high.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a learning curve for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in devising and delivering teaching online. This transition has enabled HEIs to continue teaching students, especially international students, who were restricted to travel to their countries of study. In the UK, approximately 20% of the student cohort are international students. The pandemic resulted in a drop in international student recruitment, which generated concerns about a potentially alarming economic crisis in the UK HE sector. However, COVID-19 measures have also been portrayed as a significant contributor to reducing global CO2 emissions. Thus, the question arises: can online teaching reduce the carbon footprint of the internationalisation of education? This paper reviews online teaching as a potential solution to reduce carbon footprint and increase access to HE, whilst maintaining high student performance in HE within the remits of internationalisation.

In the era of the twenty-first century, automation is the biggest fi eld of research. Although several works have been done successfully, there is still so much to do. Increasing trash could be the biggest threat to a better human life in the future. To automate the task, machines need to understand the type of trash to be recycled or separate similar trash for recycling. For this process, the perfect classi cation of trash plays a vital role in making a better life and a cleaner world. There are so many popular convolutional neural network (CNN) models for image classi cation. In this work, we examine and analyze the outcomes of several Residual Network(ResNet) and Visual Geometry Group (VGG) CNN models on a trash dataset. Our main investigation is the accuracy evaluation for different VGG and ResNet models where the training dataset, test dataset, number of epochs, and batch size are the same for all the models. Finally, we compare VGG and ResNet models with each other. We have got the peak accuracy for ResNet152 among all ResNet models and the peak accuracy on VGG16 among all VGG models. And we have got the maximum accuracy on ResNet152 among all the ResNet and VGG models which is about 94%. GUB JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, Vol 8, Dec 2021 P 17-23

The theory of ‘core labour rights’ is the well-known set of universally established minimum best practices and safeguards in respect of some basic labour standards. known as core labour standards in the world economy. This concept is devoted by ILO to promote or establish social justice and labour rights to recognise labours peace which is the most crucial part of the economic prosperity. The implementation of these measures ensures the benefits of the majority workers, rather than the rich only. This study has been prepared to examine the key challenges in implementing the international labour standards in Bangladesh garments sectors. The fundamental labour laws of Bangladesh are designed in accordance with principles of ILO, but non-enforcement of domestic regulations indicates disobedience with international core labour standards and ILO conventions too. The qualitative method has been used in the gathering and the analysing of data of this research. This study has found that most of the rules and regulations of labour laws of Bangladesh are followed by ILO standards. However, their practical approaches show an indication of dismay. Thus, it is submitted that the local jurisdiction of Bangladesh has a poor application of international core labour standards and the ILO conventions which causes uncountable dilemmas to the humanity and the peaceful garments industries. This study has suggested that the government must take necessary steps to implement core international labour standards effectively in domestic legal system and carry out a proper observation to establish social justice and peaceful garments industries in Bangladesh.

Objectives: To observe the necessity and effectiveness of the surgical intervention as a last measure in management of tubercular cervical lymphadenopathy. Another objectives are to identity the various presentation of extra pulmonary cervical tuberculosis in our country, patterns as well as causes of recurrence and resistance, type of surgery done in tubercular cervical lymphadenopathy and complications after surgery. Materials and Methods: This prospective observational study was carried among 52 patients of tubercular cervical lymphadenopathy attended in the outpatient department (OPD) and admitted into the inpatient department (IPD) of National Institute of ENT, Dhaka during the period of January 2017 to June 2018 of which first 12 months for treatment and follow up; and next 06 months exclusively for follow up, where patients of tubercular cervical lymphadenopathy were surgically treated along with standard antitubercular drugs. Results: Most of the patients 71.16% had fever and weight loss, 51.93% patients had multiple nodes at one level, 48.08% abscess and 9.62% sinus, most tubercular lymph nodes were present at level V 73.07% and in the left side 57.69% , 60% were Gene -Xpert positive. All patients were cured who had underwent surgery with no recurrence. Conclusion: A good number of patients of tubercular cervical lymphadenopathy necessitated neck dissection but patient compliance is a must in the management of the disease. Bangladesh J Otorhinolaryngol 2022; 28(1): 84-90

Purpose This study aims to examine the role of organisational commitment (affective, normative, continuance) in influencing employees’ knowledge application behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also probes the moderating role of leader–member exchange (LMX) in the association between organisational commitment and knowledge application. Design/methodology/approach This study used a sample of 206 employees working in various private sector organisations in Brunei Darussalam. Structural equation modelling using Smart-PLS was used to test the hypothesised relationships. Findings The findings show that affective and normative organisational commitment spurred employees’ knowledge application behaviour significantly during the COVID-19 crisis. However, the moderating effect of LMX could not be established in this study. Practical implications The findings provide managers with insights into the crucial role organisational commitment can play in encouraging knowledge application in an organisation. Originality/value Studies exploring the enabling factors of knowledge application are scarce, especially in the context of a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This study develops a model and empirically validates the importance of organisational commitment for knowledge application amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also provides insights for managers into how LMX can affect knowledge application outcomes, particularly during uncertain times.

Statement of Problems Smart farming is a revolutionary concept of modern science that denotes conducting farming activities using smart devices such as, IoT, robotics, drones, and AI. It can increase the quantity and quality of products significantly while optimizing the human labour. This paper explores different legal aspects of smart farming from the viewpoint of both the farm owner and the service provider. The purpose of this study is to analyse the legal issues and challenges arising out of smart farming and to suggest some recommendations to mitigate these issues. The study uses doctrinal legal research methodology followed by exploratory and analytical approach. Both primary and secondary sources are considered for identifying and interpreting data. The study finds that without specific, dedicated, and comprehensive legal regime it is impossible to govern the legal aspects of smart farming for any country. Therefore, it is recommended that every country needs a comprehensive legal regime to mitigate the legal issues and challenges of smart farming son that optimum benefit from smart farming can be attained and at the same time farm owners and service providers can be legally protected.

Objectives: Aim of our study was to predict the pattern of disease of patients admitted in cardiac unit in a district hospital of Bangladesh. Material and Methods: This observational study was conducted in the department of cardiology, General hospital, Sirajgonj, Bangladesh during the period of 02 months from June to July, 2019. Total of 504 patients were enrolled who were admitted in cardiac unit in Sirajgonj 250 bed General Hospital during two months’ period from 1st June to 31st July, 2019. Every admitted patient was included in the study and history, clinical examination and investigation was done. Risk factors and complications ware noted. After diagnosis, treatment was given and outcome was recorded. Result: Age ranges was 23 to 74 year mean age was 55.9±13.6, 322 were male and 182 were female. According to risk factors, 211 were smoker, 206 were hypertensive, 166 have dyslipidemia, 110 have diabetes mellitus, 146 were prediabetic, 70 have family history of IHD and 20 were obese. The patients were diagnosed as AMI (ST elevation)-115, NSTEMI-45, UA-40, CSA-100, CCF-20, HTN- 50, MS-7, MR-5, AS-5, RMI-15, OMI-20, ICM-13, ASD-3, VSD- 5, TOF-2, PPCI-2. Admitted patients have following complications- LVF-50, PE-2, PVC-55, AF-30, Cardiogenic shock-20, SVT-15, VT-10, CHB-10, VF-5 and atrial flutter-5. Comorbidity profile were COPD-36, Bronchial Asthma- 40, CKD-30, Musculoskeletal pain-20, AN-15, PUD-10, RTI- 10, CVD-76, Tubercular pleural effusion-10, Anaemia-15, Cervical spndylosis-5, UTI-5, RA-5, Sacroilitis-5. Following were the treatment outcome cured-40, improved-414, referred-35 and death-15. Conclusion: Most of the patients were male and smoking was the predominant risk factor. Acute STelevation MI was the predominant primary disease. PVC was the most common complication and CVD was the highest comorbidity. Death was 2.9% and it was most commonly due to Acute ST elevation MI with development of LVF with cardiogenic shock. Bangladesh Heart Journal 2022; 37(1): 10-15

This study aims to adapt the Expectation Disconfirmation Theory and Technology Adoption Model to unveil provocative roles in patients’ satisfaction cognitions and subsequent continuity behaviors pertaining to telemedicine services in rural Bangladesh. A quantitative research model is developed and validated using a two-staged deep neural network and partial least squares structural equation modeling approach. The findings of this study provide evidence that five salient determinants; expectations, disconfirmation, performance, usefulness, and ease of use dominantly contribute to predicting patients’ satisfaction concerning continuity with telemedicine. This contributes to health informatics and behavioral literature by clarifying the complex interplay between patients’ satisfaction and determinants of continuity behavior in telemedicine’s domain. The findings provide novel insights into predictions of complex patients’ attitudes toward telemedicine continuity, and dynamic changes in adoption trends thereby assisting health professionals, global health experts, policymakers, and IS community in making higher quality informed decisions for people-centered future models of care.

This study analyses the maritime claims and maritime boundaries of Bangladesh and the Kingdom of Norway (Norway), including mainland Norway, the Svalbard archipelago, and the island of Jan Mayen. The object of this study is to explore the maritime boundary delimitation process followed by Bangladesh and Norway and to find out similarities between both countries in such delimitation. It is qualitative research. In identifying and interpreting data both primary and secondary sources are considered. Primary sources include international treaties, agreements, statutes, case decisions etc. whereas, secondary sources include books, journal articles, and reports of national and international organizations etc. Findings of the study reveal that there is a similarity in the maritime claims of both the countries. Both Bangladesh and Norway claimed straight baselines, 12 nautical mile territorial sea, 24 nautical mile contiguous zone, 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. They have also completed maritime boundary settlement with all the neighbours.

This paper investigates the influence of organizational factors on affective commitment, exploring the moderating role of information and communication technology (ICT) on their relationships. The study is based on empirical findings administered on 200 managerial personnel using the PLS-SEM. Team orientation, transformational leadership, transactional leadership and decentralization have a direct influence on affective commitment. The theoretical framework presented in this study focused on the integrated effect of organizational factors on affective commitment along with the moderating effect of ICT ICT support moderates the relationship between team orientation and affective commitment. The findings would provide managers an understanding of the factors influencing affective commitment in Bangladesh’s service organizations. The results indicate that ICT can be an effective tool to strengthen teamwork and employee commitment. Evidence from this study would help managers to to formulate strategies accordingly and provide new knowledge to researchers to look further into this field.

This article discusses the incorporation and implementation of international laws, specifically international treaties and agreements into the domestic legal system of Bangladesh. The position of international laws in the legal system of Bangladesh and their authority to interpret and challenge domestic laws has been focused upon. To that effect, the constitutional provisions dealing with international law along with various authoritative court decisions have been analyzed. Additionally, status and implementation of customary international laws in Bangladesh have also been absorbed. How the norms of customary international laws are being incorporated and implemented have been discussed in detail. The analytical methods of research have been carried in the piece highlighting judicial decisions and international instruments. This article is based on secondary materials with the key sources including textbooks, reports, journal articles, conference papers, daily newspapers and online documents. The study has also relied on international instruments, domestic laws and decided cases of Apex Court of Bangladesh. The findings show that as a democratic country Bangladesh needs to incorporate for the sake of its own people the provisions of international treaties into domestic laws. This is a gradual but perilous process which would take more than political goodwill to materialize. As a young nation, it still has a long way to go to level its regulations up-to the international standards. The positive indication is that the supreme courts of Bangladesh are increasingly realizing and interpreting international instruments through their decisions pressurizing the government to make positive changes in the legislations.

The paper develops a theoretical model that focuses on the integrated effect of organizational factors on knowledge sharing, taking the moderating effect of training and development. The proposed hypotheses were tested with structural equations modeling using self-reports of 200 personnel working in Bngladesh-based MNCs. The organizational factors such as respect for people, job stability, aggressiveness, transformational leadership, transactional leadership and decentralization have a direct influence on knowledge sharing. The substantial effect of training and development was not evident in moderating the relationship between organizational factors and knowledge sharing. However, this study reveals that training and development moderates only the relationship between team orientation and knowledge sharing. the findings broaden the understanding of the impact of organizational culture, leadership, and training and development, and knowledge sharin. This study helps managers to formulate strategies and provide new knowledge to researchers to look further into this field.

This letter proposes a three-phase phase-locked loop (PLL) algorithm relying on an adaptive Clarke transform (CT) under amplitude and/or phase angle unbalanced condition. Analytical expressions for coefficients of matrix associated with the adaptive CT are derived and used to generate orthogonal signals. An auxiliary algorithm is also proposed to track the actual amplitudes and phase angle deviations. Unlike the conventional CT relying on constant coefficients, the adaptive CT can generate accurate orthogonal signals from the three-phase voltages including phase angle and/or amplitude imbalances. As a result, the proposed PLL is not affected by the unbalanced phase angles with/without amplitude imbalances. The advantages of the proposed adaptive CT based PLL method is illustrated by both simulation and experimental results.

Legally, a child is a person between birth and puberty who is generally a minor, also known as an individual younger than a major. Accordingly, based on the recent statistics, Bangladesh is home to over 160 million people, where more than 64 million children make up around 40 percent of the population. Many of these children continue to live below the global poverty line. Though children should have basic rights including food, education, well-being and nutrition, security, upbringing, entertainment, safe drinking, disinfection, and cleaning, these fundamental rights have been deprived of the rights of most descendants in Bangladesh. Hence, this study aims to examine firstly, the regulatory framework protecting children in Bangladesh that includes: international standards of child protection, international commitments of Bangladesh government, critical analysis of Children Act 1974, Children Rules 1976, and Children Act 2013 of Bangladesh, and National Policies and Action Plans on children protection and their shortcomings. Secondly, this study outlines a critical evaluation of domestic standards to protect children in the current Bangladeshi practices. It is a qualitative research. Secondary sources textbook, journal articles and case commentaries are used to examine the guarantee of children rights and to evaluate the applicability of laws within the country. The results of the study show that although there are several laws and policies to protect children in Bangladesh, children are still being exploited and ill-treated. Therefore, legal reforms should be introduced to combat the situation.

The current research was an attempt to compare the impacts of online English language learning and face-to-face English language learning on Iranian EFL learners’ grammatical knowledge and their learning motivation. To this end, the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was given to 81 Iranian EFL students, and 50 of them who were at the intermediate level were selected as the participants of the study. Then, they were randomly divided into two groups; one experimental group (EG) ( n = 25 ) and one control group (CG) ( n = 25 ). After that, both groups were pretested by a grammar test and a motivation questionnaire. After pretesting, the participants of the EG received the treatment through online instruction. On the other hand, the participants of the CG were taught the grammatical points through a face-to-face instruction. At the end of the treatment, both groups took the posttest of grammar and motivation. The EG outperformed the CG on both the grammar and motivation posttests, according to the findings of paired and independent samples t -tests. Implementing online instruction assisted Iranian EFL learners to enhance their grammatical knowledge and increase their learning motivation. The implications of this research can encourage teachers to use online learning methods in their classes.

At present, environmental sustainability is a big concern due to the limited resources and the adverse impacts of petroleum-based materials. Green composites (GCs) attracted intensive research interest for the last few decades from academicians, scientists, researchers, and practitioners both from the ecological and economic point of view and are presently being considered as one of the most promising research domains. Composites produced from renewable and/or natural resources thanks to their biodegradability and sustainability properties are envisaged as the next-generation materials to meet the growing demand worldwide. GCs are intensively investigated due to their multifunctional properties and utilization in a wide variety of fields including automobile, marine, aerospace, structural and infrastructural applications, packaging, electronics industry, sports, and biomedical applications. They also show potentials to replace the expensive as well as non-degradable petroleum-based composites. After the shelf life, it can be disposed of easily without harming the environment. The processing techniques, properties, and applications of green composites are comprehensively assessed in this review article. The feasibility of the naturally available fiber and polymers for green composites are also discussed highlighting the existing challenges with possible suggestions. It was intended to present a full overview of biodegradable polymer composites reinforced with natural fiber, as well as the necessary future directions for the concerned researchers.

Cyber assurance, which is the ability to operate under the onslaught of cyber attacks and other unexpected events, is essential for organizations facing inundating security threats on a daily basis. Organizations usually employ multiple strategies to conduct risk management to achieve cyber assurance. Utilizing cybersecurity standards and certifications can provide guidance for vendors to design and manufacture secure Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products as well as provide a level of assurance of the security functionality of the products for consumers. Hence, employing security standards and certifications is an effective strategy for risk management and cyber assurance. In this work, we begin with investigating the adoption of cybersecurity standards and certifications by surveying 258 participants from organizations across various countries and sectors. Specifically, we identify adoption barriers of the Common Criteria through the designed questionnaire. Taking into account the seven identified adoption barriers, we show the recommendations for promoting cybersecurity standards and certifications. Moreover, beyond cybersecurity standards and certifications, we shed light on other risk management strategies devised by our participants, which provides directions on cybersecurity approaches for enhancing cyber assurance in organizations.

Smart grid technologies are based on the integration of the cyber network and the power grid into a cyber-physical power system (CPPS). The increasing cyber-physical interdependencies bring about tremendous opportunities for the modeling, monitoring, control, and protection of power grids, but also create new types of vulnerabilities and failure mechanisms threatening the reliability and resiliency of system operation. A major concern regarding the interdependent networks is the cascading failure (CF), where a small initial disturbance/failure in the network results in a seemingly unexpected large-scale failure. Although there has been a significant volume of recent work in the CF research of CPPS, a comprehensive review remains unavailable. This article aims to fill the gap by providing a systematic literature survey regarding the modeling, analysis, and mitigation of CF in CPPS. The open research questions for further research are also discussed. This article allows researchers to easily understand the state of the art of CF research in CPPS and fosters future work required towards full resolutions to the remaining questions and challenges.

This work is accepted for presentation at IEEE ICC'23. Abstract: Smart grid technologies have been transforming the power grid operation paradigms by integrating smart sensing devices, advanced communication networks, and powerful computing resources. In addition, data-driven applications have significantly increased in recent years, accelerating the use of smart sensors, such as phasor measurement units (PMU), in power grid monitoring. It necessitates a well-functioning communication network (CN) for PMU measurement data transfer to the control center even in the event of failures. This paper proposes a PMU network routing algorithm to ensure data transfer for control center's resilient observability to the power grid. The interdependent roles of PMUs in power grid observability is first identified based on the power grid topology. Then, a failure-tolerant routing algorithm is proposed to find data transfer paths in the CN that meets the power grid monitoring needs. The resultant routing paths ensure resilience against single link failure, where the resilience is defined in terms of grid observability. Besides, a cost metric is defined to minimize end-to-end delay in the network to facilitate real-time data transfer. Simulation results verify the superiority of the proposed routing algorithm compared with conventional fault-tolerant routing algorithms that are agnostic to the domain knowledge of power grid observability.

PurposeThis study aims to develop a framework that demonstrates the role of social capital in alleviating knowledge hiding behaviour in organisations while also considering the moderating roles of perceived organisational politics and the perceived value of knowledge in this process.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a systematic literature review of research papers on the topic of knowledge hiding to develop a framework for mitigating knowledge hiding.FindingsThis paper conceptualises social capital into three interrelated dimensions (e.g. structural, cognitive and relational). Based on the findings of the review, all the three social capital dimensions can potentially mitigate an individual’s propensity towards knowledge hiding. Additionally, the paper integrates two potential moderators: perceived organisational politics and perceived value of knowledge, which could undermine the outcomes of social capital in mitigating knowledge hiding.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the proposed framework may provide preliminary insights to practitioners and scholars, one of its key limitations is that it is conceptual. Future empirical research is needed to validate the proposed framework.Originality/valueExisting research has focused on studying the antecedents and consequences of knowledge hiding. However, scant scholarly work explores how such behaviour can be mitigated. This paper addresses this gap and contributes to understanding how organisations can alleviate the prevalence of knowledge hiding by developing their social capital and by focusing on contextual factors.

The study was conducted to analyze the groundwater potential zones in the Eastern part of Kushtia district. Secondary data collected from Bangladesh Agriculture Development Board Corporation (BADC) and borehole data of 119 locations have been processed, analyzed and interpreted for studying the hydrogeological properties. The sub-surface groundwater-bearing sequence of the area up to the depth of 97 m have been classified into two main hydrostratigraphic units- aquitard and aquifer, consisting of clay-silt-sand and sands of different granular respectively. The 18-30 m thick aquitard is covering a major part of the study area. The thickness of main aquifers is varying from 0.9-30 m and 27-67 m consisting of fine-medium to coarse sand. The yield potential index is 1.3-13.0. However, from the obtained results, it can be concluded that the area is suitable for groundwater potentiality. GUB JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, Vol 7, Dec 2020 P 36-41