Search

This study presents a comprehensive damage assessment technique to evaluate post-fire condition of a two-basement +22-story RC commercial building in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A fire broke out on March 28, 2019, engulfing the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors of the building, resulting in a minimum of 25 fatalities and over 70 injuries. The five-hour-long colossal fire was initiated on the 8th floor of the building and propagated to the adjacent 7th and 9th floors. The structural components of all three floors were damaged though not at the same level. An in-depth technical inspection was conducted visually to assess the fire damages. Concrete cracking at different widths and depths, crumbled tiles and plasters, concrete failure in the roofs, exposed rebars are observed in both structural and non-structural components of those floors. Based on the visual inspection, damage contours of the different zones of the floors are prepared to determine the damage intensity. The assessment primarily showed that 27 % of the 7th floor, 19 % of the 8th floor, and 22 % of the 9th floor were severely burned in which 2–3 % of the structural components were damaged significantly by concrete crushing and exposed rebars. In addition, compressive strength, carbonation depth, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and rebar tensile strength test were conducted on concrete and rebar specimens taken from the building to understand the effect of fire on the material properties of the existing building. Subsequently, parametric fire analysis has been conducted explicitly to understand the temperature-time characteristics of compartment fire during the fire period of the damaged floor. The parametric fire characteristics claimed that the fire was ventilation controlled and a maximum gas temperature of 1027.3 °C reached to the 7th Floor. The test results and fire analysis indicate that the increase in temperature caused by the fire has a substantial impact on the mechanical properties of the materials. Specifically, the concrete compressive strength and tensile strength of the reinforcing bars are found to be reduced by 8–35 %, and 15 %, respectively which are also verified though the numerical analysis.

Giant milkweed (Calotropis gigantea L.) is a salinity and drought-resistant xerophyte that is widespread around the world and serves significant ecological and medicinal purposes. The research aimed to evaluate the influence of saline stress on germination characteristics and prompt growth attributes of seedlings of C. gigantea. Seeds were germinated under five salinity levels viz. 0, 6, 8, 10 and 12 dS m-1 and allowed to grow for 30 days for traits assessment. Germination percentage (GP), germination rate index (GRI), co-efficient of the velocity of germination (CVG), mean germination time (MGT), Timson germination index (TGI), shoot length (SL), root length (RL), seedling dry weight (SDW) and healthy seedling number at 30 days were found lower in the salt solution compared to the control condition. Mean germination time was expanded with the increment of salinity levels. TGI of C. gigantea sustained a significant positive linear regression with GP (r = 0.9881), GRI (r = 0.9923) and CVG (r = 0.7887) at P < 0.001, but MGT (r = 0.7855) at P = 0.005. The correlation coefficient among the germination traits revealed insignificant between RL and other germination traits (GP, CVG, MGT, and TGI) except GRI (r = 0.499*) and SL (r = 0.541*). It is recommended that, as an emerging medicinal and fiber resource plant, C. gigantea can be cultured productively in coastal saline areas.

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been used to non-destructively and rapidly evaluate the quality of fresh agricultural produce. In this study, two commercially available portable spectrometers (F-750: Felix Instruments, WA, USA; and SCiO: Consumer Physics, Tel Aviv, Israel) were evaluated in the wavelength range between 740 and 1070 nm to non-invasively predict quality attributes, including the dry matter (DM), and total soluble solids (TSS) content of three fresh table grape cultivars (‘Autumn Royal’, ‘Timpson’, and ‘Sweet Scarlet’) and one peach cultivar (‘Cassie’). Prediction models were developed using partial least-square regression (PLSR) to correlate the NIR absorbance spectra with the invasive quality measurements. In regard to grapes, the best DM prediction models yielded an R2 of 0.83 and 0.81, a ratio of standard error of performance to standard deviation (RPD) of 2.35 and 2.29, and a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 1.40 and 1.44; and the best TSS prediction models generated an R2 of 0.97 and 0.95, an RPD of 5.95 and 4.48, and an RMSEP of 0.53 and 0.70 for the F-750 and SCiO spectrometers, respectively. Overall, PLSR prediction models using both spectrometers were promising to predict table grape quality attributes. Regarding peach, the PLSR prediction models did not perform as well as in grapes, as DM prediction models resulted in an R2 of 0.81 and 0.67, an RPD of 2.24 and 1.74, and an RMSEP of 1.28 and 1.66; and TSS resulted in an R2 of 0.62 and 0.55, an RPD of 1.55 and 1.48, and an RMSEP of 1.19 and 1.25 for the F-750 and SCiO spectrometers, respectively. Overall, the F-750 spectrometer prediction models performed better than those generated by using the SCiO spectrometer data.

Discrete swelling in one lobe of thyroid gland with no palpable abnormality elsewhere is termed as a solitary thyroid nodule. FNAC is the investigation of choice in solitary nodule for selection of surgical cases due to compliance, simple and quick to perform. The aim of this study was to evaluate the utility of FNAC in solitary thyroid nodule with the relation of histopathological findings. In this prospective observational study fifty (50) patients of solitary thyroid nodule without multinodular goitre, diffuse goitre, dominant nodule and clinically hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism were included from admitted patients of different institutes of Comilla both private and government Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh. All patients were clinically examined and investigation findings from thyroid scan, ultrasonogram of thyroid gland, FNAC of thyroid nodule, histopathological report of excised thyroid were collected and posted into data collection sheet. The data were analysed with simple statistical table. The result showed that among 50 patients 41 patients were detected as benign nodule after FNAC which is about 82%. Malignant lesions were 12% (6 patients) and 6% (3 patients) of the case was indeterminate as because the specimen were unsatisfactory. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of FNAC diagnosis in relation to histopathological findings were 100%, 83.33% and 97.87%. So FNAC is sensitive and accurate method for evaluation of solitary thyroid nodules.