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Background: Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the second major global cereals mostly grown in winter season which led wheat plants to suffer with salinity stress. Twenty to thirty percent of the arable land of the world is present in the saline area. Therefore, it is necessary to develop salinity tolerant wheat varieties to meet the future food demand. Methods: A field experiment was carried out during November 2018 to March 2019 to observe the effect of salinity on yield and other desired plant characters and finally screening of wheat genotypes for salinity tolerance. The experiment was laid out in a complete randomized design containing three treatments with three replications. The treatments were three levels of salinity such as control, 8 dS m-1 and 15 dS m-1. Multivariate and principal components analysis was executed to evaluate yield and other plant characters. Result: The results of the experiment revealed that different plant characters showed wide range of variation under different salinity levels. Biplot analysis considering PC1 and PC2 revealed that grain yield was positively correlated with grain spike-1, spike length, thousand seed weight and total tiller plant-1. Correlation study also revealed that total tiller plant-1, spikelet spike-1, grain spike-1 and thousand seed weight showed significant and positive relation with grain yield plant-1. On the basis of yield reduction percent and yield the genotypes G12 (2.51 g), G16 (2.49 g) and G4 (2.19 g) were found suitable for 15 dS m-1 salinity.

BackgroundMalnutrition among women disproportionately exists across socioeconomic classes of Bangladesh. According to our knowledge, studies which attempted to identify determinants and their contributions to explain BMI-based nutritional gap between the poorest and the richest categories of Wealth Index are still scarce.ObjectivesTo identify the nutritional gap of women between the richest-poorest classes in Bangladesh, and to determine how much of this gap are attributed to differences in predictors and differences in coefficients.Study populationReproductive-aged (15–49 years) women of Bangladesh.Methods and proceduresWe utilized the latest round (2017–2018) data of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS). Body mass index (BMI) has been used to measure the nutritional status of women. The kernel density was used to visualize the nutritional gap. The Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) decomposition method was used to ascertain influential determinants and their contributions to the existing gap between the richest-poorest classes of women.ResultsWe analyzed the data of 18,682 reproductive-aged women. There was a significant mean BMI gap of 4.1 unit (95% CI: 3.90–4.35) between the poorest-richest (25.6 vs 21.5) women. The overall prevalence of underweight, overweight and obese were 11.8%, 33.8% and 15.4%, respectively. The richest women were less underweight (7.5%) but more overweight (23.7%) and obese (42.2%). In contrast, the poorest women were more underweight (32.0%) but less overweight (13.9%) and obese (7.0%). According to results of OB decomposition method, all predictors combinedly can explain 1.62 units (95% CI: 1.31–1.93) of the total mean BMI gap (equivalent to 40%). Some of the major predictors were women years of education (0.45 units, 95% CI: 0.27–0.64), spouse years of education (0.16 units, 95% CI: -0.02–0.34), current working status (0.17 units, 95% CI: 0.10–0.34), access to Television (0.50 units, 95% CI: 0.28–0.72), and place of residence (0.37 units, 95% CI: 0.22–0.72). The unexplained part of the poorest-richest gap was 2.51 units (95% CI: 2.13–2.89), which means that this particular gap will remain unchanged even though the mean difference of the predictors was diminished.ConclusionsA large part of the nutritional gap (approximately 60%) between the poorest and richest classes of women are found to be unchanged by the predictors of the study. Therefore, further predictors should be identified to minimize such gap. Moreover, policy makers and relevant stakeholders should implement feasible strategies to minimize the existing differences in the major predictors.

The application of ultraviolet (UV) light in poultry production is garnering increased interest with the drive toward improved poultry welfare and optimized production. Poultry can see in the UV spectrum (UVA wavelengths: 320–400 nm) thus inclusion of these shorter wavelengths may be viewed as more natural but are typically excluded in conventional artificial lights. Furthermore, UVB wavelengths (280–315) have physiological impact through stimulation of vitamin D pathways that can then improve skeletal health. However, better understanding of the effects of UV supplementation must occur before implementation practically. This non-systematic literature review aimed to summarize the impacts of UV supplementation on the behavior, welfare, and production of laying hens, meat chickens (breeders and growers), and other domestic poultry species including directions for future research. The literature demonstrated that UVA light has positive impacts on reducing fear and stress responses but in some research, it significantly increases feather pecking over age during the production phase. UVB light will significantly improve skeletal health, but an optimum duration of exposure is necessary to get this benefit. Supplementation with UVB light may have more distinct impacts on egg production and eggshell quality when hens are experiencing a dietary vitamin D3 deficiency, or if they are at the terminal end of production. The relative benefits of UVB supplementation across different ages needs to be further verified along with commercial trials to confirm beneficial or detrimental impacts of adding UVA wavelengths. Further research is warranted to determine whether adding natural light wavelengths to indoor poultry production is indeed a positive step toward optimizing commercial housing systems.

In this paper, impacts of cyber-attack on proportional integral derivative controlled automatic generation control unit and automatic voltage regulator have been analyzed individually. A controlled switching unit has been proposed for ensuring frequency stability during an attack. Also, another controlled switching unit, designed for automatic voltage regulator, has been proposed for mitigating voltage disruption during a cyber-attack. The protective model proposed in this paper offers combined protection for frequency and voltage disruptions in a power system during cyber-attack.

Purpose The study aims to determine the impact of non-Muslim tourists’ perception of halal tourism products and services (PHTPS) on trip quality, trip value, satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) towards halal tourism destination. Design/methodology/approach A total of 375 non-Muslim tourists were surveyed in Malaysia using partial least square technique. Findings The findings showed that PHTPS has a significant impact on all four dimensions. The strongest relationship was found between PHTPS and trip quality, followed by PHTPS–WOM, PHTPS–satisfaction and PHTPS–trip value. Originality/value This study provides new insights into the theory and practice of non-Muslim tourists’ PHTPS and WOM towards halal tourism destination. The findings are valuable to tourism operators, managers and marketers with the understanding and responsibility to develop halal tourism products and services from non-Muslim tourists’ insights.

Aims: To determine bacteriological load of rejected papers used as food packaging materials and assess their prevalence of use by food vendors. Methods and Results: Food vendors (n=116) were selected purposively from various street food, fast food, small and large dining stalls or hotels located at Jashore, Bangladesh. Paper samples randomly collected from these vendors were later categorized into 5 different types as food wrapping, plate covering, tray spreading paper and hand cleaning. Then, 7 paper samples from these each 5 types were randomly sampled for microbial analysis. Swabbing and defibering methods for bacterial analysis and SPSS for statistical analysis were employed. The number of bacteria by the defibering method was in the range of (1.9×108-7.5×108) Cfu/g. Sample papers tested by swabbing method contained between minimum 1.2×108 and maximum 9.2×108Cfu/cm2. Under swabbing method, the minimum average bacterial count was 2.8×108 Cfu/cm2 in food serving paper samples and maximum 4.7×108 Cfu/cm2 in wrapping paper samples. By defibering method, maximum average of bacterial load was found in tray spreading paper samples as 5.3×108Cfu/g and minimum average was in plate covering paper as 4.4x108Cfu/g. Types of paper samples were not significantly different when compared with each other against their mean bacterial concentration found by swabbing method (F=0.961, p=0.443) as well as defibering method (F=2.227, p=0.09).The mean quantity of paper use per vendor surveyed was as much as 1.26 kg a day. Anticipatedly, quantity extent of paper use (kg/day) based on the types of food shops showed a significant difference (F=3.9, p=0.01), as understandably, paper use among different shops was apparently highly variable. Conclusions: The paper samples used for food wrapping and packaging showed high bacterial contamination more than standard acceptance level. There is an urgent need to discourage the use of these papers as food packaging material by creating awareness among food vendors and consumers regarding its harmful effects.

The authors sought to understand the background and training of pediatric urology advanced practice providers (APP) to create an orientation program that improves APP preparation for subspecialization in pediatric urology. Obtaining these data will allow for the development of an evidence-based approach to educating the new pediatric urology APP at a national level. An anonymous survey was sent to the 331 members of the Pediatric Urology Nurses & Specialists (PUNS) professional organization to assess the qualities of orientation and training at institutions across the nation. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the results of the survey for this group of participants. A total of 49 participants (15% response rate) participated in this survey. Most participants reported completion of a one to three-month orientation program (57.2%) that was moderately structured (57.1%). The overall mean self-rating of preparedness was 6.2 out of 10 at the conclusion of their training. However, this rating varied between participants who had training programs under and over three months duration (p < .001). Most respondents felt that they were not optimally prepared to enter the field. The survey results show that longer training programs (at least three months) lead to higher levels of self-assuredness. The pediatric urology APP orientation program at the authors' institution will be adjusted to meet the concerns of the survey participants to ensure a more equipped team of advanced practice providers. The authors hope that this will serve as a guideline for institutions across the country to train pediatric urology APPs.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a contemporary coronavirus, has impacted global economic activity and has a high transmission rate. As a result of the virus’s severe medical effects, developing effective vaccinations is vital. Plant-derived metabolites have been discovered as potential SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) is a target for therapeutic research because of its highly conserved protein sequence. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and molecular docking were used to screen 34 compounds identified from Leucas zeylanica for potential inhibitory activity against the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. In addition, prime molecular mechanics–generalized Born surface area (MM-GBSA) was used to screen the compound dataset using a molecular dynamics simulation. From molecular docking analysis, 26 compounds were capable of interaction with the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro, while three compounds, namely 11-oxa-dispiro[4.0.4.1]undecan-1-ol (−5.755 kcal/mol), azetidin-2-one 3,3-dimethyl-4-(1-aminoethyl) (−5.39 kcal/mol), and lorazepam, 2TMS derivative (−5.246 kcal/mol), exhibited the highest docking scores. These three ligands were assessed by MM-GBSA, which revealed that they bind with the necessary Mpro amino acids in the catalytic groove to cause protein inhibition, including Ser144, Cys145, and His41. The molecular dynamics simulation confirmed the complex rigidity and stability of the docked ligand–Mpro complexes based on the analysis of mean radical variations, root-mean-square fluctuations, solvent-accessible surface area, radius of gyration, and hydrogen bond formation. The study of the postmolecular dynamics confirmation also confirmed that lorazepam, 11-oxa-dispiro[4.0.4.1]undecan-1-ol, and azetidin-2-one-3, 3-dimethyl-4-(1-aminoethyl) interact with similar Mpro binding pockets. The results of our computerized drug design approach may assist in the fight against SARS-CoV-2.

This work has aimed to investigate the consumers’ green product purchase attitudes and behavioral intention during COVID-19 pandemic. Data was collected through a survey method of 503 consumers in Malaysia. Data were analyzed using the partial least square method. The findings revealed that fear of COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on green product behavioral intention. Green product literacy, green product orientation, and social influence have a significant influence on green product purchase attitudes. The results also indicated that consumers’ green product purchase attitudes mediate the effect of green product literacy, green product orientation, and social influence on behavioral intention. The findings of this work will provide strategically relevant references to green marketers and retail managers in the understanding of consumers’ green product purchase attitudes and green product behavioral intention during the ongoing uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the increasing rate of multimedia usages, many processes have been introduced to ensure the safety of their contents. Digital signature and watermarking are the processes that are used in cryptography and digital image transmission respectively. These two techniques can be combined for secure multimedia transmission. Over the years, these technologies have been able to secure the data of text documents but securing multimedia contents have been a difficult task. Therefore, this research proposed to use the digital signature and watermarking to secure multimedia data. The multimedia data is embedded with another data and is transmitted after encrypting it using the cryptographic algorithms. The receiver end decrypts the data and extracts the original data from the watermark. For digital watermarking, various transformations have been suggested. In this exploration, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) has been used as it shows better results in digital watermarking applications.

Simple Summary Molecular docking in conjunction with molecular dynamics simulation was accomplished as they extend an ample opportunity to screen plausible inhibitors of the main protease from Leucas zeylanica. The preferential phytochemicals were identified from L. zeylanica through gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The pre-eminent three identified phytochemicals exhibited toxicity by no means during the scrutinization of ADME/T prominences. Moreover, pharmacologically distinguishing characteristics and the biological activity of the lead phytochemicals were satisfying as an antiviral drug contender. Additionally, the molecular dynamics simulation exhibited thermal stability and a stable binding affinity of the protein–compound complex that referred to the appreciable efficacy of lead optimization. Therefore, the preferable phytochemicals are worth substantial evaluation in the biological laboratory to recommend plausible antiviral drug candidates. Abstract Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a contemporary coronavirus, has impacted global economic activity and has a high transmission rate. As a result of the virus’s severe medical effects, developing effective vaccinations is vital. Plant-derived metabolites have been discovered as potential SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) is a target for therapeutic research because of its highly conserved protein sequence. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and molecular docking were used to screen 34 compounds identified from Leucas zeylanica for potential inhibitory activity against the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. In addition, prime molecular mechanics–generalized Born surface area (MM-GBSA) was used to screen the compound dataset using a molecular dynamics simulation. From molecular docking analysis, 26 compounds were capable of interaction with the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro, while three compounds, namely 11-oxa-dispiro[4.0.4.1]undecan-1-ol (−5.755 kcal/mol), azetidin-2-one 3,3-dimethyl-4-(1-aminoethyl) (−5.39 kcal/mol), and lorazepam, 2TMS derivative (−5.246 kcal/mol), exhibited the highest docking scores. These three ligands were assessed by MM-GBSA, which revealed that they bind with the necessary Mpro amino acids in the catalytic groove to cause protein inhibition, including Ser144, Cys145, and His41. The molecular dynamics simulation confirmed the complex rigidity and stability of the docked ligand–Mpro complexes based on the analysis of mean radical variations, root-mean-square fluctuations, solvent-accessible surface area, radius of gyration, and hydrogen bond formation. The study of the postmolecular dynamics confirmation also confirmed that lorazepam, 11-oxa-dispiro[4.0.4.1]undecan-1-ol, and azetidin-2-one-3, 3-dimethyl-4-(1-aminoethyl) interact with similar Mpro binding pockets. The results of our computerized drug design approach may assist in the fight against SARS-CoV-2.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first recognized in Wuhan in late 2019 and, since then, had spread globally, eventually culminating in the ongoing pandemic. As there is a lack of targeted therapeutics, there is certain opportunity for the scientific community to develop new drugs or vaccines against COVID-19 and so many synthetic bioactive compounds are undergoing clinical trials. In most of the countries, due to the broad therapeutic spectrum and minimal side effects, medicinal plants have been used widely throughout history as traditional healing remedy. Because of the unavailability of synthetic bioactive antiviral drugs, hence all possible efforts have been focused on the search for new drugs and alternative medicines from different herbal formulations. In recent times, it has been assured that the Mpro, also called 3CLpro, is the SARS-CoV-2 main protease enzyme responsible for viral reproduction and thereby impeding the host’s immune response. As such, Mpro represents a highly specified target for drugs capable of inhibitory action against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As there continue to be no clear options for the treatment of COVID-19, the identification of potential candidates has become a necessity. The present investigation focuses on the in silico pharmacological activity of Calotropis gigantea, a large shrub, as a potential option for COVID-19 Mpro inhibition and includes an ADME/T profile analysis of that ligand. For this study, with the help of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis of C. gigantea methanolic leaf extract, a total of 30 bioactive compounds were selected. Our analyses unveiled the top four options that might turn out to be prospective anti–SARS-CoV-2 lead molecules; these warrant further exploration as well as possible application in processes of drug development to combat COVID-19.

The objective of this research is to analyze the discrepancies of textual laws of arrest in Bangladesh which substantially differ from the actual application. The Criminal Procedure Code of 1898 is the key piece of law currently in place in Bangladesh allowing police to arrest anyone who breaches the existing laws of the state. Generally, the police can arrest a person who has been given an arrest warrant by the competent court. But section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure authorizes the police to arrest a person without a warrant of arrest. It is the exception to the arrest rule. However, police are alleged to abuse this section in various ways by using the section's ambiguous wording. Bangladesh's constitution granted certain fundamental rights that must be upheld in every way. Having regard to the Bangladesh Constitution, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh issued some guidelines as a form of directives that a police officer requires to follow at the time of the arrest. Although the good laws are in place to function, the realistic or actual implementation of these laws is still in question. Therefore, there is a significant difference existing between the laws in books and the laws in action.

This paper manifests Linear Quadratic (LQ) controller optimization techniques for a three-phase microgrid (MG) system. optimization has been done with the Genetic algorithm (GA). This paper demonstrates how data-driven optimization techniques can help designing an optimal controller. A comparative analysis has been drawn between the conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller scheme and the data-driven Linear Quadratic (LQ) control scheme. Two different LQ controller structures have been designed with GA optimization- Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller. It becomes evident from the results that the optimized LQ controller outperforms the conventional PID controller. Between the two LQ control scheme, LQG has shown better performance in reference tracking and handling system transients. The system has been designed and optimized in the Matlab/ Simulink platform.

A discrete-time chaotic Lü system is investigated. Firstly, we give the conditions of local stability of this system around feasible fixed points. Then, we show analytically that discretized Lü system undergoes a flip-Neimark Sacker (NS) bifurcation when one of the system parameter varies near its critical value. We confirm the existence of flip-NS bifurcation via explicit Flip-NS bifurcation criterion and determine the direction of both bifurcations with the help of center manifold theory and bifurcation theory. We carry out numerical simulations to affirm our analytical findings. Furthermore, we present Maximum Lyapunov exponents (MLEs) and Fractal dimension (FD) numerically in order to justify whether chaos exists in the system or not. At the end, we apply hybrid control strategy to eliminate chaotic trajectories of the system.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges in delivering healthcare to surgical patients. To avoid delays in patient care while still minimizing COVID-19 infection risk to patients and providers, anesthesiology preoperative clinics were presented with the opportunity to implement telemedicine to assess patients' risks prior to surgery. This study explores patient and provider satisfaction with video-based telemedicine preoperative clinic visits during the COVID-19 pandemic via a patient and provider satisfaction survey. A vast majority (93%) of patients expressed overall satisfaction with telemedicine visits. Similarly,85% of providers agreed with the benefits of and expressed overall satisfaction with the preoperative telemedicine visits. Overall, patient and provider study participants had positive feedback in response to anesthesia preoperative telemedicine visits. Future studies could assess the preference of telemedicine to in-person visits once the fears of COVID-19 spread have been mitigated, as well as an assessment of outcomes comparing telemedicine and in-person visits.

This paper introduces an integrator augmented linear quadratic regulator (ILQR) control platform for improvedoperation of a three-phase microgrid (MG) system. The threephase MG system operated with LQR control scheme, often suffers from instability and poor performance during load shifting and the system transition period, while the proposed control scheme, ILQR, ensures stability and reduces the steadystate error of the system. The controller parameters have been tuned using a data-driven evolutionary optimization algorithm, genetic algorithm (GA). A comparison has been shown between the performance of GA optimized LQR and GA optimized ILQR control scheme. The proposed GA optimized ILQR scheme has shown significant improvement with 0% steadystate error while LQR has shown 3.15%. GA optimized ILQR has also ensured 3.1% overshoot, while LQR scheme made 10.4% overshoot. Matlab and Simulink platform have been used for simulations and optimization.

Background The estimation of the stature of human beings is a major part of medicolegal investigation when only body parts are found. The study aimed to estimate the stature from different handprint measurements in a Bangladeshi population using statistical considerations. A sample of 200 young Bangladeshi adults (100 men and 100 women) with no physical disabilities participated in this study. Stature and seven anthropometric measurements were measured using standard anthropometric measurements. The bilateral asymmetry was tested using the independent t test. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient (R) between the stature and different handprint measurements was calculated. Consequently, the simple and multiple linear regression models were developed to estimate the stature from the handprint measurements. Results The bilateral asymmetry was statistically not significant (p > 0.05) in right and left handprints. Sex difference significantly (p < 0.05) influences the relationship between stature and handprint measurements. A positive and strong coefficient of correlation (R) value presents between stature and the handprint measurements. The right 2nd digit length in men (R = + 0.709, R2 = 0.502, SEE = ± 44.141 mm) and the right handprint length in women (R = + 0.552, R2 = 0.305, SEE = ± 49.074 mm) were the most reliable estimator of stature. However, when data were combined for both sexes, the right handprint length was identified as the most reliable estimator of stature with higher values of R (+ 0.777) and R2 (0.603), and a lower value of SEE (± 55.520). Multiple regression equation showed greater reliability than linear regression equations in stature estimation from handprint measurements in Bangladeshi population. Conclusions It was concluded that the estimation of stature from handprint measurements is possible and reliable. The findings of this study are very useful from the forensic and medicolegal point of view and can use to estimate the stature in Bangladeshi population.

Several surveys and polls have confirmed increasing religiosity among South Asian people; however, hardly any studies have examined and analyzed the people’s perspectives on the religion-politics relationship in South Asian nations. This chapter addresses this gap by analyzing public perception on the conflation of religion and politics in South Asian countries, namely, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, representing three major religions – Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism. It offers two interrelated but divergent arguments. First, increasing religiosity leads to an increasing tendency among the populations to support “political parties with religious beliefs.” Second, despite such a tendency, the South Asian populations do not necessarily hail “religious political parties” with significant electoral support. It concludes that the people of South Asia tend to support religious values in public life and practice faith in their personal lives but avoid giving their electoral support to religious parties. The chapter uses key insights from theoretical literature and empirical findings from waves of public perception surveys conducted by World Values Survey (WVS) 1995-2014, Pew Research Center 2011-2012, and Asian Foundation 2011, as well as electoral performance statistics of political parties from respective election commissions, which help make sense of this conclusion.

This paper proposes a digitally controlled Quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) having a tuning scope of S. 1S$\sim$12.57 GHz, mainly applicable for X band frequency implementations in 90 nm CMOS process. 4-bits MOS varactor based digitally controlling scheme has been employed, which outputs 16 separate frequencies. Phase noise @ lMHz offset varies from -122.47dBc/Hz to -99dBc/Hz, and the output power alters from 9.92 dBm to 7.99 dBm. The Maximum Figure of merit is -190.40dBc/Hz for 8.18 GHz frequency, and the DC power consumption is 10.75 mW. We have also done process corner analysis, temperature sweep analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation of the proposed design for perfect justification. Finally, a fair comparison has also been shown in tabular format for basic performance parameters.

Background: Brucellosis is a chronic zoonotic disease with negligible mortality rate that might be the reason not to attract the concerned authority to prevent and eradicate it in low income endemic countries. Recently, it has been recognized as a re-emerging zoonotic disease not only in low income countries but also its eradicated developed world. Objective: The main objective was to determine the humoral immune response (HIR) in crossbred dairy heifers immunized with Brucella abortus strain RB51 vaccine by using indirect ELISA Materials and Methods: Each of the 20 randomly selected B. abortus sero-negative crossbred (Holstein-Friesian  Local) dairy heifers aged between 4 to 8 months old at the Military Dairy Farm received 2.0 ml imported commercial B. abortus SRB51 strain vaccine subcutaneously in the neck region at day 0 and then booster dose at 60 days after first vaccination with similar dose and route during the period from June to October 2020. Each of the collected serum samples of 20 heifers at day 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 60, 90, 120 and 150 was tested to detect the antibody status by using commercial indirect ELISA kit. Results: The humoral immune response (HIR) in terms of antibody levels detected by OD values in the serum of immunized cross-bred dairy heifers by using B. abortus strain RB51 commercial vaccine resulted 0.097  0.0032 (mean  SE) OD value at 0 day (i.e. pre-immunization) and 0.108 ± 0.0032 at 7th day. After that, the OD value started to rise from day 14 (OD value 0.124 ± 0.0032) and reached to a peak level at 60 days (OD value 0.223  0.0032) with the initial vaccination. Booster vaccination inoculated at 60 days resulted peak antibody level in terms of OD value (0.313  0.0032) at the day 90 and then the antibody level started to decline from 120 days (OD value 0.242  0.0032) to 150 days (OD value 0.199 0.0032) in cross-bred dairy heifers. Conclusions: This study suggests that the commercial B. abortus RB51 strain vaccine has induced satisfactory HIR with initial inoculation and significantly higher HIR produced with a booster dose in crossbred heifers by using commercial I-ELISA. The presence of Brucella antibodies have importance on sero-diagnosis whereas the cell mediated immunity (CMI) plays major role in protection against brucellosis which needs further investigation in cross-bred heifers in Bangladesh. Keywords: Brucellosis, SRB51 vaccine, Humoral immune response, I-ELISA, Cross-bred heifers, Bangladesh

Multilevel converters present great advantages compared to the conventional two-level converters for step-up transformer-less direct medium voltage (0.6-66 kV) grid connected renewable power generation systems. Modular multilevel converter (MLC) with high frequency magnetic link is considered as the best alternative for such kind of application. But in high power application, higher switching frequency generate significant amount of switching and conduction losses, harmonic components and as a result high junction temperature. The initialization of failure mechanism owing to the overheating may cause serious damage of the converter, which results in the high cost of replacement at a very limited space of installation. Hence the conduction and switching power losses of the multilevel converter are needed to be precisely designed, calculated, analyzed, and minimized. In this paper, an analytical method has been proposed to calculate the conduction power losses in MLCs with reduced number of switching of bus-clamping pulse width modulation (BCPWM) technique. Numerical results of the continuous conduction power loss function representing the discrete loss profile of the switching devices are compared with the outcomes of circuit level simulation in MATLAB/Simulink environment.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first recognized in Wuhan in late 2019 and, since then, had spread globally, eventually culminating in the ongoing pandemic. As there is a lack of targeted therapeutics, there is certain opportunity for the scientific community to develop new drugs or vaccines against COVID-19 and so many synthetic bioactive compounds are undergoing clinical trials. In most of the countries, due to the broad therapeutic spectrum and minimal side effects, medicinal plants have been used widely throughout history as traditional healing remedy. Because of the unavailability of synthetic bioactive antiviral drugs, hence all possible efforts have been focused on the search for new drugs and alternative medicines from different herbal formulations. In recent times, it has been assured that the Mpro, also called 3CLpro, is the SARS-CoV-2 main protease enzyme responsible for viral reproduction and thereby impeding the host’s immune response. As such, Mpro represents a highly specified target for drugs capable of inhibitory action against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As there continue to be no clear options for the treatment of COVID-19, the identification of potential candidates has become a necessity. The present investigation focuses on the in silico pharmacological activity of Calotropis gigantea, a large shrub, as a potential option for COVID-19 Mpro inhibition and includes an ADME/T profile analysis of that ligand. For this study, with the help of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis of C. gigantea methanolic leaf extract, a total of 30 bioactive compounds were selected. Our analyses unveiled the top four options that might turn out to be prospective anti–SARS-CoV-2 lead molecules; these warrant further exploration as well as possible application in processes of drug development to combat COVID-19.

A License Plate Recognition (LPR) is a technique to automatically identify and recognize the license plate of a vehicle. In today’s world where we want to do everything in no time, automated LPR has opened a new door in Intelligent Traffic System. With the help of ALPR, we can implement many smart systems starting from a parking facility to crime investigation. For effective License Plate Recognition, accurate License Plate Detection and License Plate Segmentation are crucial. Many existing algorithms are using different image processing and machine learning techniques for detection, segmentation, and recognition. These algorithms are highly computational extensive and somewhat unreliable. In our paper, we have proposed an end- to-end license plate recognition system for Bangladeshi vehicles. We have divided our system into three different phases. The first phase is license plate detection and localization. For that, we have used YOLOv3. In the second phase, we have implemented a custom segmentation algorithm specifically for Bangladeshi license plates which is robust and computationally fast. In the final phase, we have implemented a character recognition model with convolutional neural network (CNN). This recognition system has achieved 97.5% accuracy. Moreover, we have built a diversified dataset with 2000 images where we have tried to capture the environmental factors.

Epilepsy is a frequently observed neurological abnormality. In the manual method, a physician monitors the recording of Electroencephalogram (EEG) of a patient to detect epileptic seizures. But this method is time-consuming and fallible. This chapter presents an automatic epileptic seizures detection and EEG signals classification method based on multi-domain feature extraction and multiscale entropy analysis. In this method, EEG data is collected and preprocessed for artifacts removal from the original data. Then discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are applied for extracting features. Multiscale entropy (MSE) with sample entropy is also applied to extract nonlinear features. Finally, supervised learning classifiers such as support vector machine (SVM), k-nearest-neighbors (k-NN) and artificial neural network (ANN) are used for epileptic seizures detection, three-class and five-class classification of the EEG signals. The dataset has been collected from the University of Bonn. This method attained an accuracy of 99.54%, sensitivity of 98.56% and specificity of 99.76% for epileptic seizures detection. For three-class and five-class classification, accuracy was 98.22% and 87.00%, respectively.

The state of global democracy has been witnessing a consistent trend called ‘democratic backsliding’. Several studies have explained ‘why democracy backslides’, nevertheless, attention towards ‘how democracy backslides’ remains less explored. The current paper meets this gap and examines the processes of democratic backsliding in six countries, namely Bangladesh, Bolivia, Mali, Turkey, Ukraine, and Zambia. We make three interrelated arguments. First, we argue that there are specific milestones in the process of democratic backsliding which accentuates the processes and provides legitimate cover to the actions of the incumbent. Second, as opposed to Levitsky & Ziblatt (2018)’s three stage model of the backsliding – attacking referees, targeting opponents, and changing the rules of the game, we show that a pattern of changes in the constitution, in other words, changing the rules of the game, is the first step. Third, media manipulation is the second target in the backsliding processes.

Biomass burning releases highly reactive methoxyphenols into the atmosphere, which can undergo heterogeneous oxidation and act as precursors for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Understanding the reactivity of such methoxyphenols at the air-water interface is a matter of major atmospheric interest. Online electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (OESI-MS) is used here to study the oxidation of two methoxyphenols among three phenolic aldehydes, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillin, and syringaldehyde, on the surface of water. The OESI-MS results together with cyclic voltammetry measurements at variable pH are integrated into a mechanism describing the heterogeneous oxidative processing of methoxyphenols by gaseous ozone (O

Background: Brucellosis is a neglected re-emerging important zoonotic disease in the developing world. Most of the research on brucellosis was limited on the sero-epidemiology during the last 50 years and recently molecular techniques have been initiated to study brucellosis in Bangladesh. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine sero-molecular prevalence, identify risk factors and detect Brucella species associated with bovine and human brucellosis in Bangladesh Materials and Methods: Serum and milk samples from 1003 lactating dairy cows of eight military dairy farms and 715 serum samples of dairy farm workers and hospital patients were collected during the 36 months period from 2017 to 2020. All the collected sera and milk samples were tested with four different commercial diagnostic test kits to detect the prevalence of Brucella infection. The four sero-positive milkers sera and milk, and all animal samples collected from aborted cases were tested for Brucella genus-specific RT-PCR and Brucella species-specific DNA (B. abortus and B. melitensis) Multiplex PCR. Conventional PCR and sequencing were also performed. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression were used to identify important risk factors of brucellosis. Results: The overall 2.39% sero-prevalence of Brucella infection was recorded with all the CFT, SAT and ELISA assay and 3.09% with RBT, whereas only 0.20% tested milks samples showed positive with MRT in the lactating dairy cows. The B. abortus DNA was amplified from all of the four RBT positive human serum samples tested. Phylogenetic tree of partial 16S ribosomal RNA sequences of the PCR products was closely matched with B. abortus. Three variables (age, parity and abortion) were found to be significantly associated with B. abortus infection in lactating cows. Conclusions: B. abortus is the causal agent of bovine brucellosis which is identified as the first time as an etiological agent of human brucellosis in occupationally exposed dairy farm workers in Bangladesh. This study could not detect the most important zoonotic B. melitensis DNA either in humans or animal samples, even in any earlier studies and therefore, further studies are required to explore the occurrence of B. melitensis in human and animal population in Bangladesh. Keywords: B. abortus, Lactating cows, Military dairy farms, Sero-tests, Genus specific RT-PCR, Species

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Background During the time a diarrhea patient presents at a health facility, the household members of the patient are at higher risk of developing diarrheal diseases (> 100 times for cholera) than the general population. The Cholera-Hospital-based-Intervention-for-7-Days (CHoBI7) is a health facility-initiated water treatment and handwashing with soap intervention designed to reduce transmission of diarrheal diseases between patients and their household members. The present research aimed to (1) develop a scalable approach to integrate the CHoBI7 intervention program into services provided at government and private health facilities in Bangladesh; and (2) tailor the intervention program for the household members of all diarrhea patients, irrespective of the etiology of disease. Methods We conducted 8 months of formative research, including 60 semi-structured interviews, 2 group discussions, and a pilot study. Thirty-two interviews were conducted with diarrhea patients and their family caregivers, government stakeholders, and health care providers both to explore existing WASH and diarrhea patient care practices in health facilities and to identify considerations for scaling the CHoBI7 program. Fifty-two diarrhea patient households participated in a pilot study of a modified version of the CHoBI7 intervention program for tailoring. Twenty-eight interviews and 2 group discussions were conducted with pilot households to explore experiences with and recommendations for intervention delivery. Results The intervention program was modified based on formative research findings. Pilot study participants recognized the benefits of the CHoBI7 intervention program and made suggestions to improve the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention. Modifications included 1) providing additional pictorial modules, cues to action, enabling technologies, and supplies for safe drinking water and handwashing with soap behaviors in the health facility; 2) switching out technology prone to breaks and leaks as well as sourcing plastic technologies from a high-quality, local manufacturer; and 3) including instructions discouraging the non-use or misuse of technologies and supplies. Considerations for scalability include the local availability and marketing of enabling technologies and supplies, staff for program delivery in health facilities, and potential integration into existing government or health promotion programs. Conclusions Formative research identified important considerations for the content, delivery, and scalability of the CHoBI7 health facility-initiated WASH intervention program.

The study aims to investigate the brand perception of halal product and services that influence satisfaction in determining Muslim tourists’ experience based on the brand equity and expecta...

Commelina diffusa Burm. F. is a herbaceous tropical plant with different traditional medicinal uses. Present study is aimed to isolate the bioactive compounds from DCM-Methanol extract of the powdered whole plant of Commelina diffusa and to investigate the cytotoxic, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the crude extract and its twelve vacuum liquid chromatographic fraction (CD1-12). Vacuum Liquid Chromatography (VLC) was employed to isolate bioactive metabolites. The physicochemical properties of the isolated compound were examined and the molecular structure was elucidated by NMR spectroscopy. Cytotoxic, antibacterial, antioxidant activities were evaluated following brine shrimp lethality bioassay, disc diffusion method and DPPH free radical scavenging assay respectively. The isolated compound was identified as steroid (stigmasterol) which had significant cytotoxic effect on vero cell line. The crude extract and its fractions (CD8-CD12) exhibited strong cytotoxicity in brine shrimp lethality bioassay having LC50 values 3.79, 9.19, 29.49, 16.60, 19.36, 44.58 μg/mL respectively. The crude extract showed mild to strong antibacterial activity. Fractions (CD5-CD12) showed mild to strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli in comparison with Kanamycin (standard). Strong antioxidant activities were found in crude extract (IC50 value 30.52 μg/ml), CD11 (IC50 value 39.27 μg/ml) and CD12 (IC50 value 19.50 μg/ml). The study suggests Commelina diffusa plant extract to have strong antioxidant and cytotoxic activity which is indicative of presence of compounds with broad spectrum of curative applications. One compound namely stigmasterol has been isolated from the plant.

We investigate the dynamics of a discrete-time predator-prey system of Leslie type. We show algebraically that the system passes through a flip bifurcation and a Neimark-Sacker bifurcation in the interior of $ \mathbb{R}^{2}_+ $ using center manifold theorem and bifurcation theory. Numerical simulations are implimented not only to validate theoretical analysis but also exhibits chaotic behaviors, including phase portraits, period-11 orbits, invariant closed circle, and attracting chaotic sets. Furthermore, we compute Lyapunov exponents and fractal dimension numerically to justify the chaotic behaviors of the system. Finally, a state feedback control method is applied to stabilize the chaotic orbits at an unstable fixed point.

Healthcare disparities have been shown to impact outcomes of various acute pediatric conditions. We sought to examine the impact of race, ethnicity and insurance status on the presentation, management and outcome of testicular torsion.A retrospective review of a prospectively maintained testicular torsion database was performed. Patients ≤18 years of age evaluated in our pediatric institution's emergency room between April 2016-April 2020 with US diagnosed and OR confirmed testicular torsion were included. Basic demographics, timing of presentation, referral rate, time to OR and orchiectomy rate were extracted and compared. P 0.05 was considered statistically significant.A total of 206 patients were included. 114 (56.2%) were Black or African American (Black/AA), 43 were (21.2%) Hispanic/Latino, 22 (10.8%) were Caucasian, and 24 (11.8%) were designated as Other races. Ninety-eight (48.3%) patients had Medicaid, 90 (44.3%) had private insurance, and 15 (7.4%) patients were uninsured. Sixty-eight (33.0%) presented in a delayed fashion (24 h). Compared to the Caucasian patients, Black/AA patients were 2.1 years (95% CI: 0.5, 3.8; P = 0.010) older at the time of presentation. When compared to those with Medicaid insurance, uninsured patients had 6.26 times (95% CI: 1.58, 41.88; P = 0.021) higher odds to be referred from an outside hospital for management. In those patients presenting acutely (24 h, N = 138), there were no significant differences in the odds of orchiectomy for Black/AA or Hispanic/Latino patients when compared to Caucasian patients, however, the odds of orchiectomy in Other races (non-Caucasian, non-Black/AA, non-Hispanic/Latino) was significantly higher (OR: 10.38; 95% CI: 1.13, 246.96; P = 0.049). While the mean time in minutes from ED to OR was longer in those with Medicaid insurance (141 vs 125.4 private vs 115 uninsured, p = 0.042), this did not impact orchiectomy rate (39.8% vs 40.9% vs 46.7%, p = 0.88).We found no differences in the orchiectomy rates by race with the exception of a higher rate in the diverse and heterogeneous Other race (non-Caucasian, non-Black/AA, non-Hispanic/Latino) group. Those uninsured had a higher referral rate highlighting the potential existence of disparities for those uninsured and the need for further investigation.