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Abstract Background Bangladesh is rapidly urbanizing and approximately half of its urban population resides in deprived slums with limited access to basic needs. However, there is a dearth of information on vulnerability levels among slum dwellers. We aimed to assess the level of vulnerability within and between slums via various socioeconomic and health indicators. Methods A cross-sectional survey of 810 randomly selected households was conducted in two purposively selected slums, Korail and Shyampur, in Dhaka from November to December 2021. Data was collected on various indicators, including demographics, education, employment, access to utility, and healthcare services. Principal component factor analysis was employed to identify the key indicators to construct the socioeconomic and health vulnerability index for the urban slums of Bangladesh (SEHVI-BD). Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin, Bartlett’s test, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient test were used to assess indicators’ suitability. The selected indicators were used to generate an index on a scale of 100, with a higher index value indicating a higher level of vulnerability. The estimated scores were used to categorize the vulnerability status into three levels: mild, moderate, and severe vulnerability. The Mann-Whitney-U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were applied between the generated index and other socioeconomic variables to validate the relationship. Results A total of 27 socioeconomic and health indicators were identified that explained 60% of the variance. The indicators were then grouped into six domains on the basis of their relevance. The prevalence of severe vulnerability in the Korail slum was approximately 9% and moderate vulnerability was 30% whereas these values were approximately 58% and 37%, respectively, in the Shyampur slum. The difference in the vulnerability level between the two slums was also evident across the domains. Households in the poorest wealth quintile, with lower education levels of household heads, and having irregular income experienced higher levels of vulnerability. Conclusions The SEHVI-BD offers a critical tool for policymakers to identify and address vulnerabilities, facilitating more targeted public health interventions in urban Bangladesh and similar low-income settings. This study further emphasizes the importance of integrating comprehensive vulnerability assessments into public health policies to reduce inequalities and improve well-being, especially for the urban marginalized slum population.

BackgroundUpazila Health Complexes (UzHC) serve as the backbone of primary healthcare (PHC) at the sub-district level in Bangladesh, delivering comprehensive healthcare services including both inpatient and outpatient services to the grassroots levels. However, not all the prescribed medicines and diagnostics services are always available at these facilities for outpatient care. This results in out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) to the patients for getting prescribed medicines and diagnostics services which has not been properly explored. Thus, we aimed to estimate the overall provider and user costs for outpatient care services at selected UzHCs in Bangladesh.MethodsAn ingredient-based costing approach was applied to estimate the costs for the most commonly reported illnesses at outpatient of UzHCs from a societal perspective. We conducted a health facility survey at four purposively selected UzHCs to estimate provider costs and a patient exit survey among 452 patients of selected illnesses to estimate the user costs. Commonly reported illnesses were identified in consultation with healthcare providers of these facilities. The difference between costs of prescribed and provided medicines at UzHCs was estimated using the market prices. Data was collected between February to March 2021.ResultsThe societal costs of the common outpatient illness or symptoms varied significantly, ranging from BDT 642 to BDT 1,384 per episode. Antenatal care had the highest cost burden at BDT 1,384, followed by respiratory illness at BDT 783 and urinary tract infection at BDT 670. On average, the provider spent BDT 289 for treating an outpatient, while a patient incurred BDT 446 as OOPE. Further, a patient was expected to spend an average of BDT 341 for purchasing medicines not provided from UzHCs.ConclusionOur study found significant gaps between prescribed and provided medicines at UzHCs, leading to higher OOPE for patients. The current healthcare resource allocation strategy does not consider the outpatient load and healthcare demand at PHC facilities, which further exacerbates this gap. Addressing this gap requires a fundamental shift towards a demand-driven resource allocation model within the healthcare financing strategy to improve healthcare access and achieve health for all.

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic imposed unprecedented challenges to health systems globally. This study explored slum dwellers’ experience of receiving essential health services during the pandemic and the challenges faced by healthcare providers in urban areas of Bangladesh.Design The study followed a cross-sectional study design using qualitative methods.Setting The study was conducted in Dhaka and Gazipur City Corporations during November 2020–February 2021.Participants 17 key informant interviews were carried out with healthcare providers and policy-makers and 22 in-depth interviews were carried out with slum dwellers. Thematic analysis was performed.Results The study identified challenges to the provision of essential healthcare in selected areas of Dhaka and Gazipur City Corporations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of information on the availability of functional healthcare facilities, fear of contracting COVID-19 and restrictions on movement and transportation, resulted in delays in seeking essential healthcare during a pandemic. Access to healthcare facilities was further hindered by various hospitals’ decision to refuse care to general patients without valid, negative COVID-19 test results. Healthcare providers identified patients’ tendency to hide COVID-19 symptoms as a barrier to providing healthcare services to general patients. Conversely, patients concealed their symptoms to avoid COVID-19 tests and gain access to required treatment. In addition, the reallocation of human resources for COVID-19 treatment disrupted the delivery of essential health services.Conclusion The pandemic affected the accessibility of the slum population to essential healthcare and disrupted health service delivery. The findings of the study have highlighted gaps in the health system during an emergency response period like COVID-19. The study will assist the government and other stakeholders in designing tailored interventions and allocating resources in a more efficient manner to ensure universal health coverage in the face of health emergencies.

BackgroundSince 2016, the government of Bangladesh has been piloting a health protection scheme known as Shasthyo Surokhsha Karmasuchi (SSK), which specifically targets households living below the poverty line. This noncontributory scheme provides enrolled households access to inpatient health care services for 78 disease groups. Understanding patients’ experiences with health care utilization from the pilot SSK scheme is important for enhancing the quality of health care service delivery during the national-level scale-up of the scheme. ObjectiveWe aimed to evaluate patient satisfaction with the health care services provided under the pilot health protection scheme in Bangladesh. MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted with the users of the SSK scheme from August to November 2019. Patients who had spent a minimum of 2 nights at health care facilities were selected for face-to-face exit interviews. During these interviews, we collected information on patients’ socioeconomic characteristics, care-seeking experiences, and level of satisfaction with various aspects of health care service delivery. To measure satisfaction, we employed a 5-point Likert scale (very satisfied, 5; satisfied, 4; neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 3; dissatisfied, 2; very dissatisfied, 1). Descriptive statistics, statistical inferential tests (t-test and 1-way ANOVA), and linear regression analyses were performed. ResultsWe found that 55.1% (241/438) of users were either very satisfied or satisfied with the health care services of the SSK scheme. The most satisfactory indicators were related to privacy maintained during diagnostic tests (mean 3.91, SD 0.64), physicians’ behaviors (mean 3.86, SD 0.77), services provided at the registration booth (mean 3.86, SD 0.62), confidentiality maintained regarding diseases (mean 3.78, SD 0.72), and nurses’ behaviors (mean 3.60, SD 0.83). Poor satisfaction was identified in the interaction of patients with providers about illness-related information (mean 2.14, SD 1.40), availability of drinking water (mean 1.46, SD 0.76), cleanliness of toilets (mean 2.85, SD 1.04), and cleanliness of the waiting room (mean 2.92, SD 1.09). Patient satisfaction significantly decreased by 0.20 points for registration times of 16-30 minutes and by 0.32 points for registration times of >30 minutes compared with registration times of ≤15 minutes. Similarly, patient satisfaction significantly decreased with an increase in the waiting time to obtain services. However, the satisfaction of users significantly increased if they received a complete course of medicines and all prescribed diagnostic services. ConclusionsMore than half of the users were satisfied with the services provided under the SSK scheme. However, there is scope for improving user satisfaction. To improve the satisfaction level, the SSK scheme implementation authorities should pay attention to reducing the registration time and waiting time to obtain services and improving the availability of drugs and prescribed diagnostic services. The authorities should also ensure the supply of drinking water and enhance the cleanliness of the facility.

Mobile phones are widely used for personal communication, but their use for agricultural purposes is scarce in the Eastern Gangetic Plain. Given Bangladesh's heavy reliance on rice production, particularly dry season, the study addresses the gap in the literature by investigating farmers' perceptions and examining the factors that influence mobile phone usage and its impact on Boro rice production. The research entailed questionnaire surveys with 150 farmers from highly Boro-intensive regions. A perception index was used to gauge mobile phone acceptance, and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and logit models were employed to analyze the factors affecting mobile phone usage and their influence on production levels. The perception index highlights various benefits, including easy access to farming and market information, prompt responses from extension officers, utilization of mobile apps for disease detection, and participation in online training and seminars. The logit model underscores the significance of educational status, credit access, household income, and extension services on the informative use of mobile phones among Boro rice farmers. The OLS findings showed that the informative use of mobile phones significantly increases Boro rice production by 1.6–4.5%, indicating that farmers with better access to farming information achieve higher production than non-users. Factors such as selling price, rainfall, credit availability, cultivable land, and farming experience significantly influenced Boro rice production. Overall, the study is rooted in the growing significance of mobile technology for disseminating crucial agricultural information. It seeks to thoroughly investigate its potential impact on Boro rice production, contributing to well-informed policy interventions and promoting sustainable agricultural development in the Eastern Gangetic Plain.

BackgroundA health care system is intertwined with multiple stakeholders, including government institutions, pharmaceutical companies, patients, hospitals and clinics, health care professionals, health researchers and scientific medical experts, patients and consumer organizations, and media organizations. Physicians and journalists are the key actors who play a significant role in making health care services and health information accessible to the people of a country. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to explore the tensions and alliances between physicians and journalists in Bangladesh, along with identifying strategies that could potentially improve the often contentious relationship and quality of medical journalism. MethodsWe conducted a web-based cross-sectional survey using the snowball sampling technique from September 2021 to March 2022. Adult Bangladeshi citizens belonging to the two selected professional groups (physicians and journalists), who understood the survey content, and agreed to participate in the survey were considered eligible for inclusion in the study. Both descriptive and logistic regression analyses, including the Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test, were performed to determine the differences between groups concerning selected perception-related variables, and the associations of perceptions about lack of trust in each other’s knowledge, skills, and professional integrity with background characteristics. ResultsA total of 419 participants completed the survey, including 219 physicians and 200 journalists. Among physicians, 53.4% (117/219) reported lower trust toward journalists’ professional domain and expertise, whereas 43.5% (87/200) of journalists had lower trust toward physicians’ professional domain and expertise. In terms of perception about not having respect for each other, the median value for the physicians was 5 (strongly agree), whereas it was only 3 (agree) for the journalists. We also found that male physicians (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 0.45, compared with female physicians) and medical officers (AOR 0.30, compared with specialists) had significantly higher odds of lacking trust in journalists’ knowledge, skills, and professional integrity. When rating the statement “Regular professional interaction between journalists and doctors may improve the relationship between the professional groups,” most physicians (186/219, 84.9%) chose “neither agree nor disagree,” whereas most journalists (106/200, 53.0%) stated that they “slightly agree.” ConclusionsBoth physicians and journalists in Bangladesh have negative perceptions of each other’s professions. However, physicians have a more negative perception of journalists than journalists have of the physicians. Strategies such as a legal framework to identify medical-legal issues in reporting, constructive discussion, professional interaction, and capacity-building training programs may significantly improve the relationship between physicians and journalists.

We have studied dispersion of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in the Kretschmann geometry (prism/Ag/dye-doped polymer) in weak, intermediate, and ultra-strong exciton–plasmon coupling regimes. The dispersion curves obtained in the reflection experiment were in good agreement with the simple model predictions at small concentrations of dye (Rhodamine 590, Rh590) in the polymer (Poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA). At the same time, highly unusual multi-segment “staircase-like” dispersion curves were observed at extra-large dye concentrations, also in agreement with the simple theoretical model predicting large, small, and negative group velocities featured by different polariton branches. In a separate experiment, we measured angular dependent emission of Rh590 dye and obtained the dispersion curves consisting of two branches, one nearly resembling the SPP dispersion found in reflection and the second one almost horizontal. The results of our study pave the road to unparalleled fundamental science and future applications of weak and strong light—matter interactions.

BackgroundBangladesh National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme (NTP) has deployed improved diagnostic technologies which may drive up the programme costs. We aimed to estimate the supply-side costs associated with the delivery of the NTP and the funding gap between the cost of implementation and available funding for the Bangladesh NTP.MethodsAn ingredient-based costing approach was applied using WHO's OneHealth Tool software. We considered 2016, as the base year and projected cost estimates up to 2022 using information on NTP planned activities. Data were collected through consultative meetings with experts and officials/managers, review of documents and databases, and visits to five purposively selected TB healthcare facilities. The estimated costs were compared with the funds allocated to the NTP between 2018 and 2022 to estimate the funding gap.FindingsThe estimated total cost of NTP was US$ 49.22 million in 2016, which would increase to US$ 146.93 million in 2022. Human resources (41.1%) and medicines and investigations/ supplies (38.0%) were the major two cost components. Unit costs were highest for treating extensively drug-resistant TB at US$ 7,422.4 in 2016. Between 2018-2022, NTP would incur US$ 536.8 million, which is US$ 235.18 million higher than the current allocation for NTP.ConclusionOur results indicated a funding gap associated with the NTP in each of the years between 2018-2022. Policy planners should advocate for additional funding to ensure smooth delivery of TB services in the upcoming years. The cost estimates of TB services can also be used for planning and budgeting for delivering TB services in similar country contexts.

Objectives To examine the prevalence of and risk factors associated with tobacco smoking in the Gambia.Design A nationwide cross-sectional study.Setting The Gambia.Participants The study participants were both women and men aged between 15 and 49 years old. We included 16,066 men and women in our final analysis.Data analysis We analysed data from the Gambia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), 2019–2020. DHS collected nationally stratified data from local government areas and rural–urban areas. The outcome variable was the prevalence of tobacco smoking. Descriptive analysis, prevalence and logistic regression methods were used to analyse data to identify the potential determinants of tobacco smoking.Results The response rate was 93%. The prevalence of current tobacco smoking was 9.92% in the Gambia in 2019–2020, of which, 81% of the consumers smoked tobacco daily. Men (19.3%) smoked tobacco much higher than women (0.65%) (p

The first COVID-19 case in Bangladesh was detected on March 8, 2020. Since then, efforts are being made across the country to raise awareness among the population for preventing the spread of this virus. We aimed to examine the urban slum dwellers' knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) towards COVID-19 transmission-prevention. A phone-based cross-sectional survey was conducted in five slums of Dhaka City. Total 476 adult slum dwellers were interviewed between October 31 to December 1, 2020 using a pre-tested questionnaire. During an interview, information was collected on participants' demographic characteristics and KAP items towards COVID-19. We used quartiles for categorization of knowledge and practice score where the first quartile represents poor, the second and third quartiles represent average while the fourth quartile represents good. Attitude score was standardized using z-score and identified as positive and negative attitude. Multiple linear regression models were used separately to identify the socioeconomic predictors of the KAP scores. The results showed that 25% of the respondents had good knowledge and 25% had poor knowledge, 48% had a positive attitude and 52% had a negative attitude, and 21% maintained good practice and 33% maintained poor practice towards COVID-19 transmission-prevention. About 75% respondents relied on television for COVID-19 related information. Regression results showed that knowledge and attitude scores were significantly higher if respondents had primary or secondary and above level of education compared to the uneducated group. Female respondents maintained significantly good practice compared to their male counterparts (β = 6.841; p

Introduction Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. In 2015, over 1.13 billion individuals worldwide had hypertension. Globally, it results in 10.8 million deaths every year. Around half of the individuals do not continue treatment with medicine to control blood pressure. Physical activity, a non-pharmacological option of treatment, reduces blood pressure. We aim in this research to examine the effect of leisure-time physical activity in controlling blood pressure.Methods and analysis We will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses to conduct this study. We will perform a systematic search in Medline/PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, Physical Education Index (ProQuest) and CENTRAL (the Cochrane Library). Both experimental and observational studies will be included. The study population would be people with hypertension. Two reviewers will perform screening of the articles, bias assessment and data extraction independently. We will use the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools to assess the risk of bias. We will conduct a meta-analysis if it is applicable.Ethics and dissemination The results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at relevant scientific seminars and conferences. Ethical approval is not applicable.PROSPERO registration number CRD42021260751.

BackgroundThe world has been grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, a dire public health crisis, since December 2019. Preventive and control measures have been adopted to reduce the spread of COVID-19. To date, the public’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding COVID-19 across Bangladesh have been poorly understood. Therefore, it is important to assess people’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward the disease and suggest appropriate strategies to combat COVID-19 effectively. ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the KAP of Bangladeshi people toward COVID-19 and to identify their determinants. MethodsWe conducted a country-wide cross-sectional telephonic survey from May 7 to 29, 2020. A purposive sampling method was applied, and adult Bangladeshi citizens who have mobile phones were approached to participate in the survey. Interviews were conducted based on verbal consent. Multiple logistic regression analyses and several tests were performed to identify the factors associated with KAP related to COVID-19. ResultsA total of 492 of 576 Bangladeshi adults aged 18 years and above completed the interview, with a response rate of 85.4% (492/576). Of the 492 participants, 321 (65.2%) were male, and 304 (61.8%) lived in a rural area. Mean scores for knowledge, attitudes, and practices were 10.56 (SD 2.86), 1.24 (SD 0.83), and 3.17 (SD 1.5), respectively. Among the 492 respondents, 273 (55.5%) had poor knowledge, and 251 (49%) expressed a negative attitude; 192 out of 359 respondents (53.5%) had poor practices toward COVID-19. Mean scores of knowledge, attitudes, and practices differed significantly across various demographic and socioeconomic groups. Rural residents had lower mean scores of knowledge (mean 9.8, SD 3.1, P

BACKGROUND: Women in Myanmar are not considered decision makers in the community and the physical and psychological effect of violence makes them more vulnerable. There is a strong negative reaction, usually violent, to any economic activity generated by women among poorer and middle-class families in Myanmar because a woman's income is not considered necessary for basic survival. OBJECTIVE: Explore the relationship between domestic violence on the decision-making power of married women in Myanmar. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. SETTING: National, both urban and rural areas of Myanmar. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Data from the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16 were used in this analysis. In that survey, married women aged between 15 to 49 years were selected for interview using a multistage cluster sampling technique. The dependent variables were domestic violence and the decision-making power of women. Independent variables were age of the respondents, educational level, place of residence, employment status, number of children younger than 5 years of age and wealth index. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Domestic violence and decision-making power of women. SAMPLE SIZE: 7870 currently married women. RESULTS: About 50% respondents were 35 to 49 years of age and the mean (SD) age was 35 (8.4) years. Women's place of residence and employment status had a significant impact on decision-making power whereas age group and decision-making power of women had a relationship with domestic violence. CONCLUSION: Giving women decision making power will be indispensable for the achievement of sustainable development goals. Government and other stakeholders should emphasize this to eliminate violence against women. LIMITATIONS: Use of secondary data analysis of cross-sectional study design and cross-sectional studies are not suitable design to assess this causality. Secondly the self-reported data on violence may be subject to recall bias. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None.

Twenty vegetable amaranth genotypes were evaluated for total antioxidant capacity, antioxidant leaf pigments, vitamins, and selection of suitable genotypes for extraction of juice in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Vegetable amaranth was rich in chlorophyll, β-cyanins, β-xanthins, betalains, carotene, ascorbic acid and total antioxidant. The genotypes VA14, VA16, VA18, VA15, and VA20 could be selected as amaranth vegtable varieties with high yields and abundance antioxidant leaf pigments and vitamins to produce juice. The genotypes VA13 and VA19 had above-average foliage yield and high antioxidant profiles while the genotypes VA2, VA3, VA9, VA11, VA12, and VA17 had a high antioxidant profiles and below-average foliage yield. These genotypes could be used as a donor parent for integration of potential high antioxidant profiles genes into other genotypes. The correlation study revealed a strong positive association among all the antioxidant leaf pigments, total antioxidant capacity and foliage yield. Selection based on total antioxidant capacity, antioxidant leaf pigments could economically viable to improve the yield potential of vegetable amaranth genotypes. Total carotene and ascorbic acid exhibited insignificant genotypic correlation with all the traits except total antioxidant capacity. This indicates that selection for antioxidant vitamins might be possible without compromising yield loss.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the City of New York, United States, are particularly vulnerable to frequent extreme weather events, including storm surges, high-intensity rainfall, and sea level rise, and are also affected by the cascade of these events. The complex structural configuration of WWTPs requires very fine-scale flood risk assessment, which current research has not pursued. We propose a robust technique to quantify the risk of inundations for the fourteen WWPTs through an automated sub-basin creation tool; 889 sub-basins were generated and merged with high-resolution building footprint data to create a comprehensive database for flood inundation analysis. The inundation depths and extents for the WWTPs and flood-prone regions were identified from hydrodynamic modeling of storm surge and sea level rise. The economic damage due to flooding for the WWTPs was also quantified using the HAZUS-MH model. Results indicated that the storm surges from various categories of hurricanes have the dominant impacts on flood depths around WWTPs, followed by high-intensity rainfall. Sea level rise was shown to have a relatively minor impact on flood depths. Results from economic damage analysis showed that the WWTPs are subjected to damage ranging from USD 60,000 to 720,000, depending on the size of the WWTP and the extremity of storm surge. The method of analyzing the inundation status of the research object through the sub-basin enables more accurate data to be obtained when calculating the runoff. It allows for a clearer view of the inundation status of the WWTPs when combined with the actual buildings. Using this database, predicting flood conditions of any extreme event or a cascade of extreme events can be conducted quickly and accurately.

Subsurface temperature is a critical indicator for the identification of the risk associated with subsurface fire hazards in landfills. Most operational landfills in the United States (US) have experienced exothermic reactions in their subsurface. The subsurface landfill area is composed of various gases generated from chemical reactions inside the landfills. Federal laws in the US mandate the monitoring of gases in landfills to prevent hazardous events such as landfill fire breakouts. There are insufficient investigations conducted to identify the causes of landfill fire hazards. The objective of this research is to develop a methodological approach to this issue. In this study, the relationship was investigated between the subsurface elevated temperature (SET) and soil gases (i.e., methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, and oxygen) with the greatest influence in landfills. The significance level of the effect of soil gases on the SET was assessed using a decision tree approach. A naïve Bayes technique for conditional probability was implemented to investigate how different gas combinations can affect different temperature ranges with respect to the safe and unsafe states of these gases. The results indicate that methane and carbon dioxide gases are strongly associated with SETs. Among sixteen possible gas combinations, three were identified as the most probable predictors of SETs. A three-step risk assessment framework is proposed to identify the risk of landfill fire incidents. The key findings of this research could be beneficial to landfill authorities and better ensure the safety of the community health and environment.

Subsurface fires and smoldering events at landfills can present serious health hazards and threats to the environment. These fires are much more costly and difficult to extinguish than open fires at the landfill surface. The initiation of a subsurface fire may go unnoticed for a long period of time and undetected fires may spread over a large area. Unfortunately, not all landfill operators keep or publish heat elevation data and many landfills are not equipped with a landfill gas extraction system to control subsurface temperatures generated from the chemical reactions within. The timely and cost-effective identification of subsurface fires is an important and pressing issue. In this work, we describe a method for using satellite thermal infrared imagery at a moderate spatial resolution to identify the locations of subsurface fires and monitor their migration within landfills. The focus of this study was the Bridgeton Sanitary Landfill in Bridgeton, MO, USA where a subsurface fire was first identified in 2010 and continues to burn today. Observations from Landsat satellites over the last seventeen years were examined for surface temperature anomalies (or hot spots) that may be associated with subsurface fires. The results showed that the locations of hot spots identified in satellite imagery match the known locations of the subsurface fires. Changes in the hot-spot locations with time, as determined by in situ measurements, correspond to the spreading routes of the subsurface fires. These results indicate that the proposed approach based on satellite observations can be used as a tool for the identification of landfill subsurface fires by landfill owners/operators to monitor landfills and minimize the expenses associated with extinguishing landfill fires.

Forty three vegetable amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor L.) genotypes selected from different eco-geographic regions of Bangladesh were evaluated during 3 years (2012-2014) for genetic variability, heritability and genetic association among mineral elements and quality and agronomic traits in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with five replications. The analysis showed that vegetable amaranth is a rich source of K, Ca, Mg, proteins and dietary fibre with average values among the 43 genotypes (1.014%, 2.476%, 2.984, 1.258% and 7.81%, respectively). Six genotypes (VA13, VA14, VA16, VA18, VA26, VA27) showed a biological yield >2000 g/m2 and high mineral, protein and dietary fibre contents; eleven genotypes had high amount of minerals, protein and dietary fibre with above average biological yield; nine genotypes had below average biological yield but were rich in minerals, protein and dietary fibre. Biological yield exhibited a strong positive correlation with leaf area, shoot weight, shoot/root weight and stem base diameter. Insignificant genotypic correlation was observed among mineral, quality and agronomic traits, except K vs. Mg, protein vs. dietary fibre and stem base diameter vs. Ca. Some of these genotypes can be used for improvement of vegetable amaranth regarding mineral, protein and dietary fibre content without compromising yield loss.

Low‐light object detection is needed for ensuring security, enabling surveillance, and enhancing safety in diverse applications, including autonomous vehicles, surveillance systems, and search and rescue operations. A comprehensive study on low‐light object detection is presented using state‐of‐the‐art you only look once (YOLO) models, including YOLOv3, YOLOv5, YOLOv6, and YOLOv8, aiming to enhance detection performance under challenging low‐light conditions. The ExDark dataset is a dataset that consists of adequate low‐light images, modified to simulate realistic low‐light scenarios, and employed for evaluation. The deep learning algorithm optimises YOLO's architecture for low‐light detection by adapting the network structure and training strategies while preserving the algorithm's integrity. The experimental results show that YOLOv8 consistently outperforms baseline models, achieving significant improvements in accuracy and robustness in low‐light scenarios. The deep learning algorithm that acquired the best score, YOLOv8s, had a mean average precision score of 0.5513. This work contributes to the field of low‐light object detection, offering promising solutions for real‐world applications like nighttime surveillance and autonomous navigation in low‐light conditions, addressing the growing demand for advanced low‐light object detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]