Volume 07, Number 01 & 02, 2010

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10361/890

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Predicting labour unrest though the lenses of theory of planned behevior : cases from BEPZA
(BRAC University, 2010) Ghosh, Suntu Kumar; Khabir, Md. Latiful; Islam, Mohammad Thoufiqul
Industrial dispute has been touted as a major constraint in the economy of Bangladesh. While poor management and inadequate institutional factors were widely blamed for the high propensity of industrial dispute, formation of workers’ behavioural intention of industrial dispute has hardly been studied in the context of Bangladesh. Based on three cases from Bangladesh Export Processing Zone (BEPZ), we apply theory of planned behaviour to identify what are the factors that influence the propensity of workers to engage in violent behaviour when an industrial dispute takes place. Our findings show that, behavioural beliefs and attitude towards formal industrial dispute resolution and perceived behavioural control strongly influence the behaviour of the workers, while subjective norms also have an influencing power, albeit is a lesser capacity. Some alternative dispute resolution techniques along with future directions for research were also provided towards the end of the paper.
Application of sensitivity analysis in self purification of the Surma River , Bangladesh
(BRAC University, 2010) Islam, Shriful; Alam, Md. J.B.; Haque, Md. A.
The rivers which flow through a city show an appreciable decline in water quality but they are often difficult to specify the exact cause of deterioration. Also the treatment of pollution of river is very troublesome. This study finds the treatment efficiency of the Surma River by its self purification capacity due to the pollution through discharges of choras (small canal), industrial wastewater discharges, and human excreta disposal. The sensitivity analysis by Streeter-Phelps Oxygen-sag equation is used to find the treatment efficiency and the corresponding sensitivity values for some selected pollution parameters were also determined. The Java software was used to find the treatment efficiency and to show the relation between treatment efficiency and those selected parameters.
Transformation of spatial pattern and declining of social capital in Dhaka city , Bangladesh
(BRAC University, 2010) Munni, Sheikh Rubaiya Sultana
In human settlement, there is a strong link between spatial quality and societal values. A space has two facts: physical phenomenon and a mental arena. Both of them are influenced by the social process (Sheikh, 2006). Nowadays in our country, we are experiencing rapid unplanned urbanization due to the pressure of huge population and globalization. In course of time urban areas are developed for business, education, and administrative purposes. People are coming to urban area for livelihood. To accommodate the huge population, there occurs lot of changes in their living space and pattern. Our traditional living space is being demolished. In the past, people lived in horizontal space but now people are living in a tight and congested area where the traditional space is not respected. The community space, interaction spaces are very rare there. So social bonding is being destroyed. They are living like a machine which is very much contrary to our culture (Sheikh, 2006). This trend is destroying our social capital. This paper aims to study how transformation of spatial pattern affects our living style and turns our social capital (focusing on community network, trust, dependency and cooperation) towards the declination. It also aims to give some recommendations to make this transformation of spatial pattern organized and planned to prevent the declination of our social capital.
The notion of women as bearers of culture in Monica Ali's Brick Lane
(BRAC University, 2010) Mortada, Syeda Samara
Alistair Cormack (2006) describes Brick Lane as a 'post-colonial story' with a 'realist narrative'; to a post-colonial critic, this has many implications. Yet looking at this text from a feminist point of view has many further dimensions. Women in this novel function as a direct representation of their cultural bearing. They follow the rules set for them by society and map their behaviour according to these notions, in such a way that they institutionalize their love and as such their lives. In Ali’s Brick Lane, published in 2003, I have looked at some of the qualities women are expected to have in Bangladeshi culture, the roles/responsibilities they are meant to take on and the cultural teachings they are forced to inject into their lives. To do this, I look at the women characters in this novel; I have put them in two groups-some who carry out their prescribed roles all through their lives, others that defy these rules. Yet, all act as bearers of their culture, whether they reside inside or outside their country. Through my paper, I have analyzed the discrepancies in Bangladeshi culture between the roles of men and women, how women take on these roles and how they function in this context, as represented in this realist text. This paper is important as it talks about the current position of women in Bangladesh. Despite various groundbreaking achievements by women in various parts of the world; women still remain confined to their homes and more so into the ideological products their culture expects them to be by framing themselves into the notions set for them by their culture. In retrospect, this paper also indicates how women try to achieve the standards their families/societies create for them and hence how they themselves become bearers of their culture.
Promoting learner autonomy on a university course of English for academic purposes
(BRAC University, 2010) Jamil, MD. Golam
Promoting ‘learner autonomy’ on a course of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) seems to be widely problematic as they, ‘learner autonomy’ and EAP course, are expected to supply both skills and knowledge to the learners to pursue studies of other subjects in English within a controlled academic setting. Additionally, the course is different in type as, unlike most of the regular academic courses, it has great impacts on the learning style to study other subjects. Based on the assumption that ensuring ‘learner autonomy’ would contribute to an EAP course effectively, this study tries to explore the key areas that to be considered while designing a learner-autonomous EAP syllabus. The paper compiles the findings through investigating the EAP course of the Master of Education (MEd) programme at the Institute of Educational Development (IED), BRAC University, and tries to put some recommendations together for further consideration.
X-Ray studies and magnetic properties of Ni-Cu-Zn ferrite
(BRAC University, 2010) Rahman, M. L.; Mahmud, S. T.; Hossain, A. K. M. Akther
The effect of Cu2+ on the physical and magnetic properties of Ni-Zn ferrite prepared by the auto combustion technique has been studied. From the X-ray diffraction patterns it is seen that the sample has a single phase cubic spinel structure. The bulk density, average grain size and initial permeability increase with increasing sintering temperature up to an optimum temperature. Beyond that temperature all these properties decrease.
Postmodern visions: consumer culture's (re)making of the gaze
(BRAC University, 2010) Khanom, Afruza
Contemporary societies have transformed traditional identities in such a way that we, as subjects of globalization and mass consumer culture, have become tremendously self-conscious of the ‘gaze’ which makes, breaks and molds us. Postmodern visions of (im) perfection reign on TV screens and other media which constitute the way others see us and we, in turn, see ourselves. In a postmodern world the self is, therefore, in constant flux in accordance with the language and images defined by consumer culture. This paper briefly discusses the effect of global consumerism as it enters into the social sphere, and also looks at the way the global aspect of consumerism has infiltrated the gaze emanating from Bangladeshi culture and tradition. It is thus creating, within the Bangladeshi subject, a site for consumer identity construction through which even traditional culture has become commodified.
Large scale thermal-solid coupling analysis using inexact balancing domain decomposition
(BRAC University, 2010) Mukaddes, Abul Mukid Mohammad; Shioya, Ryuji
In this research, a system of thermal-solid coupling analysis is developed with the implementation of Inexact Balancing Domain Decomposition with a diagonal scaling (IBDD-DIAG) in both thermal and solid analysis. The IBDD-DIAG is an improved version of Balancing Domain Decomposition (BDD), where an incomplete factorization based parallel direct method is employed to solve a coarse space problem, and the diagonal-scaling is employed to precondition local fine space problems instead of the Neumann-Neumann preconditioner. The developed system performed heat conductive analysis to have temperature distributions in solid models and then performed the structural analysis to see deformation or expansion due to temperature differences. Both of the analyses employed the Hierarchical Domain Decomposition Method (HDDM) with parallel IBDD-DIAG. It is shown that the iterative procedure converges rapidly and the convergence is independent of the number of subdomains, namely, numerical scalability is satisfied. The present system is implemented on massively parallel processors and succeeds in solving a thermal-solid coupling problem of 12 millions of nodes.

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