Analytics and Big Data: Emerging trends and their impact on our lives

Companies are increasingly turning to Analytics to gain a competitive edge, providing decision makers with better insights. As they do, firms must resolve unique demands on their Information Technology resources and processes. This paper attempts to review the chronology of the adoption of Analytics. Next, it highlights how various economic sectors have incorporated Analytics and the resulting changes in the ways businesses interact with their customers. Further, the paper explores the cutting edge innovations in the Analytics domain. Subsequently, this paper tries to do an impact analysis on all these developments of our lives. Finally, the opportunities and threats, and how they may stand to affect our future, are discussed.     

City-level analysis of the effect of political regimes on?public good provision

This paper uses U.S. city-level data on five public expenditure categories to test empirically whether the form of local government affects the amount of public good provision. This also serves as an empirical test of a theory of national politics that predicts higher provision of public good in parliamentary than in presidential regimes. The robust results indicate that: at the city level, the mayor-council form of government provides significantly more public good than the council-manager form of government for two of the public expenditure categories; and, at the national level, presidential regimes provide more public good than do parliamentary regimes.     

Fresh challenges faced on the ground by the Kingdom of the Sky: A quest for peace,harmony and stability

This article argues that Lesotho’s landlocked position, which inhibits trade and results in enclaves of the poor, not only leads to its dependency on South Africa, but also contributes to its instability. It points out that destabilisation remains a problem in spite of Lesotho having served as an excellent model of peaceful transfer of power in a strengthened democratic arena under its 1993 Constitution, as the country had just celebrated 20 years of relative peace. However, despite the 1991 Windhoek Declaration military coups, violence, violation of both human rights and human security continue to contribute to instability in Lesotho, requiring the frequent intervention of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and especially so following the attempted coup in 2014. Lesotho’s Coalition government, which is a prime-ministerial form of government, is discussed in some detail in this article. The role of peacekeeping forces is also examined. The article recommends demilitarisation as the only practical, viable and long term solution to the problem of recurring coups in this country. The authors conclude that a sustained campaign against corrupt activities by government, though laudable, has somewhat surprisingly served to weaken the foundation of the Coalition in Lesotho.     

Repeated Abuse during Childhood and Adolescence Leading to Suicidal Behavior in an Adolescent: A Case Report

Children in all societies are often neglected, maltreated, abused, intentionally or otherwise by their parents, siblings and in school. One of the most important and preventable long term consequences of childhood abuse is the development of suicidal tendencies in adolescence or adulthood. We report such a case of childhood abuse leading to repeated suicidal attempts in an adolescent. Individual and family therapy, coupled with other specific interventions, has helped the teenager and his family lead a normal life. Thus, proper treatment and counseling will be helpful to cope with difficult family and social situations.     

Application of Raman spectroscopy in forensic investigation of questioned documents involving stamp inks

Stamp pad inks from different manufacturers across India have been analyzed to investigate the feasibility of Raman scattering as a tool for forensic analysis of questioned documents involving stamp inks. Nine different stamping inks were analyzed by both Raman spectroscopic and HPTLC methods. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods in classifying the investigated stamping inks based on their spectral pattern and HPTLC chromatogram. Raman scattering tool was able to determine the sequence of heterogeneous intersection strokes involving a blue stamp pad ink and other writing instruments, such as ballpoint pen ink (red and black), pencil and laser printer toner. However, this method was unable to resolve the exact sequencing for the intersection strokes involving investigated stamp ink and blue ballpoint ink or gel pen ink (all colors).     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Public Service Motivation and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the Public Sector

This article examines the mediating role of public service motivation (PSM) on the relationship between employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). A sample of employees working in public sector banks in Egypt completed a structured questionnaire comprising of questions regarding CSR perceptions and PSM. Immediate supervisors rated the OCB of employees who responded to the survey. Results reported in the paper found the following: a) Employee perceptions of both internal and external CSR had a positive influence on the development of employee desire to serve the public; b) PSM partially mediated the relationship between internal CSR perceptions and employee OCB; c) PSM fully mediated the relationship between external CSR perceptions and OCB. This study extends current knowledge of the theoretical foundations surrounding CSR at the individual-level of analysis and offers practical implications by stressing the importance of employee desire to serve the public.     

Ambitious Women: Gender and Voter Perceptions of Candidate Ambition

Political Behavior - Are ambitious women punished in politics? Building on literature from negotiation, we argue that women candidates who are perceived to be ambitious are more likely to face...     

Reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: the need for participatory governance

Traditional approaches to fighting poverty have yielded unsatisfactory results in some African countries, and have been positively damaging in others. Economic growth and social expenditure on the part of both national governments and international donors have been ineffective in some countries, while in others they have exacerbated poverty. The author considers that this is due to the absence of participatory governance. From a theoretical perspective, support for participatory governance stems from Amartya Sen's approach to understanding poverty, which conceptualises poverty as a lack of capabilities, leading to social exclusion. The lack of such governance has led to the failure of traditional approaches in the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the author proposes a tool for assessing the quality of governance, and its application in Cameroon.     

Pattern and Trend of Deliberate Self-Harm in Western Nepal

Abstract:  Acts of deliberate self-harm (DSH) not only affect the people directly involved, but also have grave psychological and social impact on the family and community. In the present study, a cohort of 173 cases of DSH reported from April 2002 to March 2005 was retrospectively analyzed, by perusing the medicolegal register maintained by the Emergency Department at the Western Regional Hospital, Pokhara in the Western Development Region of Nepal. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS Version 10.1. More than two-thirds of total cases were females. About 60% of cases were observed in the age group of 15–24 years. Poisoning (89.6%) was the most preferred method of deliberate self-harm. Organophosphate pesticides were consumed in nearly two-thirds of the poisoning cases. The majority of cases were reported during the months of May to July and had occurred during the last quarter of the day. More than a twofold increase was observed in the frequency of cases during the 3-year study period. The said observations were compared and contrasted with the available literature across the globe. The presentation is concluded by highlighting the limitations encountered in Nepal and the scope to overcome the same.