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Campus crisis management remains an understudied topic in the context of COVID-affected higher education. In this paper, we contrasted the ability to tame the wicked problems brought by the pandemic of COVID-19 in private and public universities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, India, Kazakhstan, Uganda, and Ukraine. The cross-country analysis and diversity of institutional types allowed us to consider a wide range of challenges faced by academic leaders and their institutions during the global pandemic. By drawing on institutional policy reviews and interviews with university administrators, we have examined tensions between the human and institutional agencies on these crisis-stricken campuses given differing institutional coupling, sizes, resources, and missions. The focus on agential co-dependencies and institutional coupling lays the ground for conceptualizing campus crisis management as a culturally specific construct in the context of higher education affected by the global pandemic.

Purpose: Participatory forest management initiatives in Madhupur Sal Forest in Bangladesh are characterized by the coexistence of diverse types of advisory service providers. Despite a decade of implementation of forest management initiatives, an assessment of the service delivery from a pluralistic advisory service framework is not evident. Drawing on the framework of pluralistic advisory service this study aimed to assess the role and performance of different advisory service providers that contribute to the management of forest resources. Methodology: We employed a stakeholder analysis to identify different advisory service providers, along with their power relations with forest dwellers. Data were collected using a participatory workshop and nine interviews. Findings and practical implications: The study found that most of the advisory service providers did not ensure the quality of the services, and did not orient their services towards the needs and demands of the forest dwellers. The advisory service providers continued to work with a coordination gap among themselves and the forest dwellers, which ultimately hindered their collective efforts to mobilize resources and build the strong relational condition necessary for the proper management of forest resources. Theoretical implications: This study applied a 'best fit' framework to the micro-level case of a forest advisory service, which helped to explore the dynamics of an advisory system linked to forest management initiatives. Originality: This is the first attempt to assess a pluralistic advisory system for forest management in Bangladesh.

This study examines how farmers from the Common Interest Group (CIG) have changed their capacity levels due to participating in Bangladesh's National Agricultural Technology Program (NATP). A mixed-method design was used to collect data from 120 rice and vegetable farmers. Results show that most respondents (above 75 per cent) agree that NATP initiatives, particularly group-based extension services, developed their capacity in different cultivation techniques, resource utilisation, farm inputs, communication behaviour, market access, and involvement in farmer organisations (FOs)/community-based organisations (CBOs). This study concludes that the concept of CIGs should be incorporated into the existing extension system following the termination of donor support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of ill information with or without the intention of deceiving or causing harm has negatively impacted agricultural development both in social and digital spaces. This has led to a lack of trust in adopting new technologies and practices, which has hindered the process of facilitating agricultural development. Although the study of agri-food misinformation is still in its early stages, this paper draws on a scoping review of existing literature and lessons learned from other fields, such as political science and public health, which have extensive experience in combating misinformation in social settings. The article explores how Farmer Field Schools (FFS), a popular participatory and community-based approach, can incorporate media literacy education and how a local agricultural information hub, platform approach and a relatively new approach called technology stewardship in agricultural extension can help those working in the agri-food industry combat misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streaming audio/video contents over the Internet requires large network bandwidth and timely delivery of media data. A streaming session is generally long and also needs a large I/O bandwidth at the streaming server. A streaming server, however, has limited network and I/O bandwidth. For this reason, a streaming server alone cannot scale a streaming service well. An entire audio/video media file often cannot be cached due to intellectual property right concerns of the content owners, security reasons, and also due to its large size. This makes a streaming service hard to scale using conventional proxy servers. Media file compression using variable-bit-rate (VBR) encoding is necessary to get constant quality video playback although it produces traffic bursts. Traffic bursts either waste network bandwidth or cause hiccups in the playback. Large network latency and jitter also cause long start-up delay and unwanted pauses in the playback, respectively. In this paper, we propose a proxy based constant-bit-rate (CBR)-transmission scheme for VBR-encoded videos and a scalable streaming scheme that uses a CBR-transmission scheme to stream stored videos over the Internet. Our CBR-streaming scheme allows a server to transmit a VBR-encoded video at a constant bit rate, close to its mean encoding bit rate, and deals with the network latency and jitter issues efficiently in order to provide quick and hiccup free playback without caching an entire media file. Our scalable streaming scheme also allows many clients to share a server stream. We use prefix buffers at the proxy to cache the prefixes of popular videos, to minimize the start-up delay and to enable near mean bit rate streaming from the server as well as from the proxy. We use smoothing buffers at the proxy not only to eliminate jitter and traffic burst effects but also to enable many clients to share the same server stream. We present simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our streaming scheme.

The concept of "elite interviewing" is a recent phenomenon in educational research and has been studied widely in the Western context. Drawing on my own experience, this article traces the challenges and difficulties involved in "elite interviewing" in higher education in post-colonial Bangladesh. It is based on a critical methodological perspective, using a thematic analysis of interviews with 28 higher education policy-making elites working between the 1990s and 2010s at the state level in Bangladesh. This article examines how the local power structure within the current socio-political context emerged from a long colonial past, and how this in turn influenced elite interviewing. It looks at how the researcher, who's onto- epistemological as well as geopolitical position originated from and has been influenced by both Global South and Global North contexts, negotiated with this distinctive power structure in elite interview settings to understand the "micro-politics" of neoliberal policy formulation in Bangladesh. In its critical analysis of elite interviewing, this paper traces how "everyday social practices" drawn from colonial practices, for example, the use of "sir" and acknowledging "supremacy" and "power conflict" served as a form of "capillary" domination of relations to respond to the power structure and neutralise specific identities, positions, and experiences in elite interview settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ubiquity of social and online media networks, the credulousness of online communities, coupled with limited accountability pose a risk of mis-, dis-, mal-, information (mis-dis-mal-information)—the intentional or unintentional spread of false, misleading and right information related to agri-food topics. However, agri-food mis-dis-malinformation in social media and online digital agricultural communities of practice (CoPs) remains underexplored. There is also a limited theoretical and conceptual foundation for understanding mis-dis-malinformation topics in the agri-food sectors. The study aims to review mis-dis-malinformation literature and offer a framework to help understand agri-food mis-dis-malinformation in social media and online CoPs. This paper performs a systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The review shows that many disciplines, particularly communication, social media studies, computer science, health studies, political science and journalism, are increasingly engaging with mis-dis-malinformation research. This systematic research generates a framework based on six thematic categories for holistically understanding and assessing agri-food mis-dis-malinformation in social and online media communities. The framework includes mis-dis-malinformation characterization, source identification, diffusion mechanisms, stakeholder impacts, detection tactics, and mis-dis-malinformation curtailment and countermeasures. The paper contributes to advancing the emerging literature on 'controversial topics', 'misinformation', and 'information integrity' of the virtual agri-food advisory services. This is the first attempt to systematically analyze and incorporate experience from diverse fields of mis-dis-malinformation research that will inform future scholarly works in facilitating conversations and advisory efforts in the agri-food sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally women are mostly engaged in household-based income generating activities. Post-harvest processing of vegetables has recently gained much attention due to its value addition utilities. Therefore, in this study, we tried to understand women farmers' attitudes towards and involvement in, post-harvest processing of vegetables. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews using a pre-tested questionnaire from 212 respondents in Dhaka district of Bangladesh. The data were interpreted with descriptive statistics, multivariate regression analysis and a logit model. About 71% of rural women had a favorable attitude towards post-harvest processing; 43% were involved in the postharvest processing of vegetables. Women's attitude towards post-harvest processing of vegetables was influenced by age, education, household size, and their frequency of traveling outside of their social system. Their involvement in postharvest processing of vegetables was affected by education, group membership, media contact and time spent in home management. 'Gender disparity in earnings' was the most severe barrier to expanding women's involvement in vegetable processing, followed by 'lack of land ownership status', 'spouse dominance' and 'social norms and tradition'. Motivating women in income-generating activities and introducing advanced yet low-cost and less-labour-intensive technologies would enable them to participate in the post-harvest processing of vegetables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically investigates the competition between the traditional market (TM) and the social commerce market (SCM) based on customer tendency towards product price, quality, availability, design, time convenient, place convenient, comfortable to purchase, show off tendency on social commerce market and recommendations. According to the study, there are several notable differences between TM and SCM, and the tendency to flaunt affects whether or not people buy products from SCM. Even though social commerce markets tend to have higher prices, many still prefer them over traditional markets. This research is the first to examine the conflict between TM and SCM, and its conclusions diverge from those of Singh & Bhatia (2022); when making purchases, SCM customers are more likely to have gotten affected by advertisements or boasting. This study will help policymakers, marketers, and consumers infer the SCM and TM situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a compartmental epidemic model which consists of four divisions named as non-quarantined susceptible population (S„). quarantined susceptible population (S9), infected population (I), and recovered or immune population (R) to analyze the dynamics of pandemic disease COVID 19 introducing a time delay. We analytically calculate the basic reproduction number of the model to classify epidemic case and endemic case of the pandemic. In order to understand the dynamics of Novel Coronavirus under a time delay, we perform the stability analysis and a Hopfbifurcation analysis of the proposed model as well. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to illustrate the analytical findingsthat reflect a real scenario of the transmission of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI), an innovation that was first emerged in Madagascar in the 1980s and has now diffused to more than 50 countries. The present study was conducted as field experiment in the central farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU) using RCBD design and the lab experiment was carried out in Molecular Biology and Plant Virology Laboratory under the Department of Plant Pathology, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207. The experiment was carried out to adopt SRI as an alternative approach for management of major rice diseases in Bangladesh, during the period of November, 2020 to June, 2021. From the study it was revealed that all the selected planting methods gave the significantly effect on percent disease incidence (% DI) and severity (% DS) of major rice diseases viz. blast, brown spot, sheath blight and bacterial leaf blight in selected Boro rice varieties (BRRI dhan 28, BRRI dhan 89, BRRI dhan 92 and purple rice). The highest disease incidence and severity was recorded in conventional planting method and the lowest in basic SRI method. The moderate disease incidence and severity was recorded in modern SRI method which was statistically non-significant with Basic SRI method but significant with conventional method. However, it is necessary for further trial in different variety and AEZs as field experiment. So, it may be recommended that the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) may be alternative for management of major rice diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study comprehensively investigated the distribution, source identification, and potential ecological risk of heavy metals (As, Ni, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, and Zn) in surface sediments of the Mongla port area of Bangladesh. The sediment samples were collected from ten sampling points during the wet and dry season and heavy metals were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The average concentration of heavy metal in sediments was higher during the dry season (11.36 to 118.55 mg/kg) as compared with the wet season (8.70 to 88.58 mg/kg). Certain indices, including the enrichment factor, geoaccumulation index, and contamination factor demonstrated that Cd was highly responsible for sediment pollution. The range of pollution load index values was 1.12 to 1.55 during wet and 1.59 to 2.27 during the dry season, indicating progressive deterioration of sediments by studied heavy metals. Multivariate principal component analysis showed that the source of As, Cd, Cr, Ni, Cu and, Zn in the port area surface sediment mainly due to anthropogenic activities. Considering the potential ecological risk, surface sediments of the Mongla port area showed moderate to considerable ecological risk. Potential acute toxicity results in most of the sampling points during the dry season was greater than 4, shows moderate to the severe toxicity of heavy metals in sediment. Further studies to assess the widespread risk of heavy metals are recommended to protect the aquatic ecosystem from heavy metal contamination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript focuses on devising a Tellurite-filled circular-timbered PCF that shows considerably highly birefringent and nonlinear characteristics. The impacts of numerous design parameters, such as birefringence (Br), nonlinear coefficients (NLC), confinement loss (CL), effective mode area (EMA), dispersion, numerical aperture (NA), etc. of the fiber are extensively inspected employing the commercially accessible and simulationfriendly COMSOL Software. Besides, the pertinent modal properties of the modeled fiber are rigorously characterized by operating the full-vector finite element method (FEM) with a perfectly matched layer (PML) boundary condition. The simulated findings affirm that the developed fiber exemplifies an ultra-high Br and NLC of 0.0924 and 18900 W-1Km-1 consecutively, at the operational wavelength of 1.55µm. Notably, the offered PCF also reveals a relatively lower CL, a negative-sloping dispersion and a higher EMA at the same wavelength. The pragmatic execution of the modeled fiber is expected to be doable applying the existing fabrication approaches and it can be applied in miscellaneous identical optical domains, namely polarization retention in long-distance communications, optical switching, sensor and laser layout, supercontinuum generation for frequency metrology and so forth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance of four oyster mushroom species such as Pleurotus ostreatus, PO-2 (S1), P. djmour, Pop-1 (S2), P. florida, FLO-2 (S3) and Pleurotus ostreatus PO-10 (S4) with two culture methods like spore culture (C1) and vegetative tissue culture (C2) was investigated. The experiment was conducted in Mushroom Development Institute (MDI), Savar, Dhaka from April to June, 2021 in CRD method. Considerable variations on different parameters related to growth and yield attributes were recorded. The least time required (56 days) from pure culture to first harvest was recorded in S2. The minimum days required for mycelium running completion in spawn packet (20.25 days) was observed from the treatment combination S2C1 whereas the maximum days (28.5 days) was observed from S3 C2. From pure culture to first harvest, the highest duration (77.75 days) was observed in S1C2 and the lowest duration (54.50 days) was observed in S2C1. The diameter of pilea ranged from 6.2 cm to 7.3 cm with significant difference. The maximum yield (137.25g) and biological efficiency (61%) were achieved from S2C1, the lowest yield (108.12g) and biological efficiency (48.05%) were being found with S3C1. The protein percentage was found highest (24.56%) in S1 and fiber was maximum (20.72%) in S3. Protein percentage was found maximum (24.82%) in S1C1 and minimum (21.52%) in S3C2. The highest yields (133.31 g, 124.47 g and 137.25 g) were achieved from S2 species, C1 culture method and combination treatment S2C1, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the determinants of the job performance of field advisors who were working in a remote forest area. A stakeholder analysis was conducted to identify advisory organizations working in the Madhupur Sal forest, Tangail, Bangladesh. Data from 87 field advisors were collected in face-to-face interviews. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the factors affecting the performance of the field advisors. Various factors were identified at the organizational and the individual levels. Important organizational-level variables were coordinated with other organizations, existence of economic incentives for fieldwork, presence of a monitoring and evaluation system, total number of staff, staff training, presence of a system of rewards and punishments, existence of travel allowance, and access to computer and internet facilities. Variables at the individual level included the interaction with forest researchers and the use of a group approach for information sharing as significant determinants of satisfactory performance of field advisors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global interest in sukuk, an Islamic alternative to bond financing, has grown rapidly, particularly after the 2008 global financial crisis, due to its distinctive features and investment quality. Sukuk were first launched in Malaysia and are presently available in 29 countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Luxembourg. Despite the global market prevalence of sukuk, asset pricing literature has not yet addressed the pricing mechanism of sukuk, which is inherently different from bonds and equity due to the contractual differences. However, analysts use LIBOR, or the Islamic interbank benchmark rate, as the ad‐hoc benchmark to evaluate sukuk performance. In this study, we develop a basic pricing model that captures the common risks in sukuk returns. We identify two risk factors for sukuk that require risk premiums: (a) sukuk market risk and (b) information asymmetry risk. Using these two common sukuk risks factors, investment analysts can estimate the fair value of sukuk more precisely than other ad hoc measures available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the potential use of Mahagoni wood charcoal (MWC) and Mahagoni bark charcoal (MBC) as biosorbent for reactive red 120 (RR 120) dye removal from aqueous solutions. The effect of different operating parameters such as contact time (1-210 min), pH (3-11), adsorbent dose (1-20 g/L), and initial RR 120 concentration (5-70 mg/L) on adsorption processes was studied under batch adsorption experiments. The maximum removal of RR 120 by MWC (78%) and MBC (88%) was achieved when the optimum conditions were initial RR 120 concentration (5 mg/L), pH (3), adsorbents dose (10 g/L) and equilibrium contact time (150 min). The RR 120 adsorption data of MWC and MBC were better described by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models, respectively. The MWC and MBC showed maximum adsorption capacities of 3.806 and 5.402 mg/g, respectively. Kinetic adsorption data of all adsorbents (MWC and MBC) followed the pseudo-second-order model and this adsorption process was controlled by chemisorption with multi-step diffusion. A lower desorption rate advocated that both strong and weak binding forces could exist between RR 120 molecules and adsorbents. The study results revealed that the utilization of either MWC and or MBC as an adsorbent for treating RR 120 is effective and environmentally friendly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grey Blight of Mustard caused by Alternaria sp. is one of the most important diseases of oil producing crop of Bangladesh causing heavy yield loss which is approximately 30-40%. In this study the effectiveness of selected botanicals, chemicals and their combined effects were assessed to manage this disease. Fourteen treatments including control were evaluated viz. T1= Control, T2= Trichoderma harzianum suspension, T3= Autostin 50 WDG, T4= Rovral 50 WP, T5= Dithane M-45, T6= Amistar Top 325 SC, T7= Neem leaf extract, T8= Allamanda leaf extract, T9 = Lantana leaf extract, T10= Datura leaf extract, T11= Neem leaf extract+ Rovral, T12= Datura leaf extract + Amistar Top, T13= Lantana leaf extract + Dithane M-45 and T14= Allamanda leaf extract + Autostin. Among the chemicals, the lowest disease incidence (%), disease severity (%), disease severity index (%) and pod infection (%) was found in T5 treatment (Dithane M-45) which was 55.91%, 22.09%, 32.16% and 6.72%, respectively, at 70 and 75 DAS, respectively. While among the botanicals, the lowest disease incidence (%), disease severity (%), disease severity index (%) and pod infection (%) was found in T9 treatment (Lantana leaf extract) which was 65.05%, 28.89%, 37.96% and 13.79%, respectively, at 70 and 75 DAS, respectively. In case of combined treatments, the lowest disease incidence (%), disease severity (%), disease severity index (%) and pod infection (%) was found in T13 treatment (Lantana leaf extract + Dithane M-45) which was 59.14%, 26.32%, 38.20% and 12.30%, respectively, at 70 and 75 DAS respectively. While the highest disease incidence (%), disease severity (%), disease severity index (%) and pod infection (%) was found in T1 treatment (Control) which was 79.20%, 37.54%, 67.38% and 34.63%, respectively, 70 and 75 DAS, respectively. Among the treatments yield and yield attributers were found better in T5 (Dithane M-45), T9 (Lantana leaf extract) and T13 (Lantana leaf extract + Dithane M-45). From the results on different parameters studied, the treatment Lantana leaf extract (T9), Dithane M-45 (T5) and their combined treatment (T13) can be used for management of grey blight mustard after few field trialing in consecutive year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field study was undertaken at Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the season November 2017 to April 2018 to evaluate the effects of plant × row spacings on yield and yield contributing traits of two Boro rice varieties. Two rice varieties viz., BINA dhan-10 and BRRI dhan28 were sown in five plant spacings viz. 25 cm × 15 cm, 25 cm × 25 cm, 30 cm × 30 cm, 35 cm × 35 cm, 40 cm × 40 cm in randomized completely block design with factorial fashion with three replications. Growth performances, yield contributing characters and yield were significantly influenced by varieties and plant spacings. The highest grain yield (8.75t ha-1), straw yield (11.56 t ha-1), biological yield (20.31 t ha-1) and harvest index (43.05 %) were obtained from the variety BINA dhan-10 sown at planting spacing of25 cm × 15 cm. More number of total tillers hill-1(14.75) and number of effective tiller hill-1 (12.87) were recorded from the variety BINA dhan-10 sown at planting spacing 40 cm × 40 cm. Based on the present study it is suggested that BINA dhan-10 may be grown under 25 cm × 15 cm in order to get maximum grain yield for Boro rice cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]