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In this paper, we propose an explainable approach for hate speech detection from the under-resourced Bengali language, which we called DeepHateExplainer. In our approach, Bengali texts are first comprehensively preprocessed, before classifying them into political, personal, geopolitical, and religious hates using a neural ensemble method of transformer-based neural architectures (i.e., monolingual Bangla BERT-base, multilingual BERT-cased/uncased, and XLM-RoBERTa). Subsequently, important (most and least) terms are identified using sensitivity analysis and layer-wise relevance propagation (LRP), before providing human-interpretable explanations11To foster reproducible research, we make available the data, source codes, models, and notebooks: https://github.com/rezacsedu/DeepHateExplainer. Finally, we compute comprehensiveness and sufficiency scores to measure the quality of explanations w.r.t faithfulness. Evaluations against machine learning (linear and tree-based models) and neural networks (i.e., CNN, Bi-LSTM, and Conv-LSTM with word embeddings) baselines yield F1-scores of 78%, 91%, 89%, and 84%, for political, personal, geopolitical, and religious hates, respectively, outperforming both ML and DNN baselines22Read an extended version of this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.14353.

This study aspires to investigate the influence of institutional pressure (IP) on cleaner production (CLP) practices and sustainable firm performances in the clothing industry of Bangladesh. Moreover, the research work explores the mediating role of cleaner production between institutional pressure and firms’ environmental performance. It also analyzes environmental performance as a mediator between cleaner production and firms’ economic performance. Data were collected from 246 textile and garments manufacturing units and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with the partial least square (PLS) method. The study findings unveiled a direct and positive relationship between institutional pressure and cleaner production, environmental performance and cleaner production, and firms’ environmental and economic performance. The study’s results also reveals that cleaner production partially mediate the relationship between institutional pressure and environmental performance while environmental performance is also partially mediate between cleaner production and firm’s economic performance. The research outcomes recommend that the clothing manufacturing sector welcome institutional pressures and employ cleaner production practices, leading to sustainable performance. Finally, the study highlights the managerial and theoretical implications.

The government of Bangladesh set the target to alleviate poverty in the shortest possible time by achieving high economic growth. Currently 98% of our population have access to electricity. The Government has committed to provide electricity to 100% of the population by 2021. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) also focus on energy sector as priority. The SDG target has been set to guarantee universal access to reasonable, dependable, and smart power service by 2030. Stable and secured power supply is one of the preconditions for faster economic growth. Bangladesh is already going through more than 8.1% GDP growth. The expected electricity growth per year would be around 10–12%. Bangladesh needs large power plants to meet up these targets. A 400–500 MW dual fuel Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP) will contribute to meet the growing demand and achieve grid system stability. Here we Study the Feasibility study of combined cycle power plant in context of Bangladesh (Case Study on Dual Fuel CCPP at Sonagazi, Feni).

This paper has tried to assess the impact of COVID-19 on stock return in different sectors listed under Dhaka Stock Exchange in Bangladesh during the period from 08 March 2020 to 15 September 2020. To measure the impact of COVID-19 on stock return, daily change in number of confirmed cases and deaths have been used as independent variables and DSE stock return has been taken as variable of interest. Data were collected from Bangladesh Government’s official portal, DSE archive and annual reports of listed firms. Sample is selected using two stage sampling method which is a probabilistic model. To test the validity of the used model, Pearson’s correlations analysis, Breusch and Pagan’s heteroscedasticity test, White’s homoscedasticity test and Hausman’s fixed random tests are conducted. After testing the validity, fixed effect method of panel data regression model has been used to test the two hypotheses. The result reveals that most of the sectors responded negatively to the growth in COVID-19 confirmed cases. It is also observed that selected sectors reacted more proactively to the growth in number of deaths as compared to the growth in number of confirmed cases. Where banking and textile sectors are the most sufferers to the growth of both confirmed cases and deaths, pharmaceuticals & chemicals industry proved out to be the gainers. The findings will have policy implications for the regulators as well as for the investors to design the optimum portfolio of investment. The study will add new dimensions to the existing literature., {"references":["Ahmed, S. Y. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on Performance of Pakistan Stock Exchange. Munich Personal RePEc Archive.","Al-Awadhi, A.M., Al-Saifi, K., Al-Awadhi, A. and Alhamadi, S. (2020). Death and Contagious Infectious Diseases: Impact of the COVID-19 Virus on Stock Market Returns. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 27, 100-326. Available through: doi:10.1016/j.jbef.2020.100326.","Alfaro, L., Chari, A., Greenland, A. N. and Schott, P. K. (2020). Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real-Time. National Bureau of Economic Research.","Ali, N., Nassir, A., Hassan, T., and Abidin, S. (2010). Short Run Stock Overreaction: Evidence from Bursa Malaysia. International Journal of Economics and Management, 4, 319-333.","Ashraf, B.N. (2020). Stock Markets' Reaction to COVID-19: Cases or Fatalities? Research in International Business and Finance, 54, 101-249, doi: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2020.101249.","Baker, C.R., Bloom, N., Davis, S.J., Kost, K., Sammon, M. and Viratyosin, T. (2020). The Unprecedented Stock Market Reaction to COVID-19. NBER Working Paper No. 26945. [Online] Available at: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WhitePaper_Davis_3.2020.pdf [Accessed 07 October 2020]","Becchetti, L. and Ciciretti, R. (2011). 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It is sometime difficult to find out the cause of haemolysis in haemolytic anaemia due to inconclusive results of investigation. Diagnosis of immune haemolytic anaemia is often difficult when Coomb’s test is negative. Here we present such a case of fourteen years old girl who presented with haemolytic anaemia with negative Coomb’s test. Due to high clinical suspicion we labelled her as a case of Coomb’s negative immune haemolytic anaemia and she responded well to steroid.

Background: Previous trials showed that diabetic patients had worse in-hospital and long term outcome after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) than non diabetic ones. However, the majority of such studies was carried out in western countries and limited information is available for the Asian population. Objective: The present study was intended to determine the impact of diabetes on early and mid-term outcome among patients undergoing CABG surgery in a tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh. Methods: This study was performed at Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital & Research Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh, from January to June 2014. Based on enrollment criteria, 202 patients (115 diabeticsand 87 non-diabetics) were enrolled and evaluated for their early outcome (within 30 days of operation) and midterm (after 30 days post-operatively). Patients with known diabetes or preoperative fasting blood sugar ≥6.4 mmol/L or random blood sugar ≥11.1 mmol/L were considered as diabetics. The outcome measures were ICU stay, reopening for bleeding, atrial fibrilation, cardiac arrest, total hospital stay, left ventricular ejection fraction and mortality. Results: Diabetic patients in this study had higher prevalence of hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, and renal failure. The diabetic and the non diabetic groups received a mean number of grafts of 3.2±1.06 and 2.81±1.21, respectively, Postoperative mortality in diabetic and non-diabetic patients at early and mid-term were not significantly different in univariate analysis (4.3% vs. 2.3%, p= 0.352) and (2.6 % vs. 2.3%,p = 0.630) respectively. The mean intensive care unit (ICU) stay in diabetic and non-diabetic were same (3.5days) but total hospital stay was significantly higher in the former group (one day or more). Re-opening for bleeding, atrial fibrilation and cardiac arrest in ICU were found higher in DM than those in non-DM group (28.7%vs.20.7%,10.4% vs. 8% and 4.2% vs.1.1% respectively). Conclusion: Although the mortality rate of diabetic patients following CABG surgery was in significantly higher than their non-diabetic counterparts. Morbidity was also a bit higher. Strict perioperative glyacemic control could reduce morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients undergoing CABG.

The popularity of Sustainable clothing is increasing day by day. Consumers are more interested to consider sustainable clothing design on their daily basis fashion but it is expensive to produce sustainable clothing, as there are less availability of natural fiber. Banana fiber is highly available and it can be a great source of sustainable clothing to meet the consumer demand and banana fiber can be a replacement of cotton fibre. The aim of this project work is to observe the dye ability of banana fiber with synthetic dyes such as vat, acid, basic and reactive dyes were studied. Before dyeing, scouring and bleaching of banana fiber was done and whiteness index was measured. Finally after dyeing, color fastness to wash, color fastness to rubbing was examined.

In the present paper, hetero-structured CdS–CuFe2O4 nanocomposite was synthesized by a facial method to convert CO2 to methanol in the photoelectrochemical (PEC) system. The synthesized catalysts were characterised by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, TEM, FESEM, EDX, XPS, UV–vis and PL spectroscopy. The CdS–CuFe2O4 photocatalyst showed ~6 times higher photocurrent compared to the CuFe2O4 at −0.35 V vs. NHE of bias potential under CO2 environment as revealed by chronoamperometry results. Incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) for CuFe2O4 and CdS–CuFe2O4 at 470 nm were found as 7.28 and 12.09%, respectively which clearly indicates the proficiency of CdS–CuFe2O4 heterojunction to absorb the visible light resulting in e−/h+ generation and the charge transfer during PEC CO2 reduction. Products in aqueous and gas phases were analysed which confirmed the selective production of methanol with trace amounts of H2 and CO. The CdS–CuFe2O4 catalyst demonstrated 72% and 16.9% of Faradaic and quantum efficiencies, respectively in terms of methanol production where a methanol yield of 23.80 μmole/Lcm2 was achieved in CO2 saturated aqueous solution of NaHCO3 (0.1 M). Detailed investigation revealed that the conduction band (CB) of the CdS in the heterojunction catalyst could act as a CO2 reduction site by trapping photogenerated electrons from the highly photosensitive CuFe2O4 while the water oxidation could take place at the valance band (VB) of CuFe2O4.

We present the results of an experimental study about strain effects on the core band gap and diameter of spherical bare CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS core/shell quantum dots (QDs) synthesized by using a colloidal technique at varying temperatures. Structural characterizations were made by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) techniques. Optical characterizations were made by using UV-Vis absorption and fluorescence emission spectroscopies. The XRD analysis suggests that the synthesized bare CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs have zinc blende crystal structure. HRTEM results indicate that the CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS QDs have average particle sizes about 3.50 nm and 4.84 nm, respectively. Furthermore, compressive strain causes an increase (decrease) in the core band gap (diameter) of spherical CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs at any temperature. An elastic strain-modified effective mass approximation (EMA) predicts that there is a parabolic decrease (increase) in the core band gap (diameter) of QDs with temperature. The diameter of spherical bare CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs calculated by using the strain-modified EMA, with core band gap extracted from absorption spectra, are in excellent agreement with the HRTEM data.

The main target in this study was to increase adhesion of unsaturated polyester (UP) adhesive to aluminum by structuring the aluminum surface on the microscale and nanoscale as well as by f...

Azo-ester mesogen containing two liquid crystalline compounds C1-C2 having polymerizable acrylate functional group as the terminal were designed and synthesized. The chemical structures and purity of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by different spectroscopic techniques such as FT-IR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR. X-ray crystal structure showed that compound C1 exhibited more stable E configuration with two bulky groups in the opposite sides of the N=N double bond motifs. The 1, 2-diphenyldiazene fragment in the structure of C1 is essentially planar with RMS deviation from planarity of 0.0555 Å. Analysis of the crystal packing of compound C1 revealed its intriguing supramolecular sheet-like multilayer molecular packing stabilized by C-H…O interaction involving the phenyl and acryloyl hydrogen with the carbonyl oxygen and alkoxy oxygen atoms. Thermogravimetric investigation demonstrated that both of the compounds exhibited excellent thermal stability and their thermal degradation was influenced by the terminal substituent. The DSC and POM studies confirmed that compounds C1-C2 exhibited enantiotropic liquid crystalline mesophase behaviour. Optical investigations demonstrated that both of the compounds showed strong absorption band around 300-420 nm and exhibited blue fluorescence emission.

Objectives: Bangladesh is a country which is known for its flora and fauna in South Asia. Despite embracing safe motherhood and adhering to the advice of the International Community, with remarkable progress towards achieving the maternal mortality Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 5 goal, its development contrasts with the tribal people who reside in the remote hilly regions of the country. Therefore, this study was intended to identify the predictors that affect secure maternity practices among the tribal women of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. Materials and Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional approach and was performed with live births of 556 married tribal females aged 15 to 49 years from three districts of CHT when the age of their children was not more than 1 year. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to interview the subjects. Finally, the statistical analysis was conducted with SPSS20 to estimate the odds ratios and strength of the relationship between the variables at PResults: The results of the study revealed that safe maternity practices are not the standard in CHT. Only 12.7% met the standard of maternity services in CHT. At the time of pregnancy, more than 2/3 of females received no prenatal care. The results further demonstrated that only 34% of the women gave birth to the baby at a hospital while 66% of the births occurred at home and over 50% were assisted by untrained traditional midwives. Conclusions: In general, the results revealed that socioeconomic, demographic, cultural, and behavioral factors affected the adoption of maternal health care services (MHCS) by the women of CHT. Therefore, improving the economic conditions by introducing ‘eco-friendly’ industries can help enhance the uptake of safe motherhood practices.

Corn-cobs are an agro-industrial waste and composed of cellulose mostly. In this study cellulose was isolated from the waste corn-cobs and modified to polymeric hydroxamic acid palladium complex 1 and characterized by using a variety of spectroscopic methods such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The complex 1 exhibited high catalytic activity towards Suzuki and Heck coupling reactions of activated and deactivated aryl halides to give the respective coupling products with high yield. Moreover, the complex 1 was recovered and recycled five times with no considerable loss of catalytic overall performance.

This paper reports the photocatalytic decomposition of methylene blue (MB) over titania doped copper ferrite, CuFe2O4/TiO2 with 50 wt% loading, synthesized via sol-gel method. The synthesized photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-vis diffuse reflectance, and photoluminescence, Mott-Schottky (MS) analysis and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The catalyst loadings were varied from 0.25 – 1.0 g/L and the optimum catalyst loading found to be 0.5 g/L. At the optimum loading, the conversion achieved was 83.7%. The other loadings produced slightly lower conversions at 82.7%, 80.6% and 80.0%, corresponding to 0.25, 1 and 0.75 g/L after 3 hours of irradiation. The study on the effect of initial concentration indicated that 20 ppm as the optimum concentration, tested with 0.5 g/L catalyst loading. The spent catalyst was used for the recyclability test and demonstrated a high longevity with a degradation efficiency less than 6 % for each time interval. The novelty of this study lies on the new application of photocatalytic material, CuFe2O4/TiO2 on thiazine dye that shows remarkable activity and reusability performance under visible light irradiation. Copyright © 2019 BCREC Group. All rights reservedReceived: 15th November 2018; Revised: 14th January 2019; Accepted: 17th January 2019; Available online: 25th January 2019; Published regularly: April 2019How to Cite: Arifin, M.N., Karim, K.M.R., Abdullah, H., Khan, M.R. (2019). Synthesis of Titania Doped Copper Ferrite Photocatalyst and Its Photoactivity towards Methylene Blue Degradation under Visible Light Irradiation. Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 14 (1): 219-227 (doi:10.9767/bcrec.14.1.3616.219-227) Permalink/DOI: https://doi.org/10.9767/bcrec.14.1.3616.219-227

This research paper is designed with a view to looking into various problems of translating Arabic texts into English and fixing them with prospective and suitable solutions. As translation is a very sensitive and subtle task of language studies, it involves some serious issues to deal with. However, it becomes a more complex task when we translate from Arabic to English. So, a translator must have the critical linguistic knowledge in tackling both the surface and underlying relations of language. Translation also entails the transferring and transforming a variety of characteristic elements from one language into the other. As Arabic and English are of different and distant origins, any translation from one script into the other poses a lot of difficulties such as in the areas of vocabulary, grammar, sound, style and usage. The present paper addresses the problems relating to translating the Arabic texts, specially of the language, into English as well as resolving the obstructions in a practical, possible and acceptable way on the bases of types of readership, text, context, culture and so forth. To make this work more accessible to the non-native users of the Arabic language, Arabic IPA transcriptions are furnished wherever necessary.

Migraine is a common type of headache. After tension type headache, it is the second common cause of primary headache disorder with a female preponderance.This cross sectional study was done toassess the sociodemographic characteristics of migraine patients in Bangladeshi population and to see the characteristics of headache and associated comorbidities of migraine patients.The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital (Mymensingh medical college) of Bangladesh.The study subjects consisted of 60 patients with migraine headache seen in neurology OPD.Mean age was 32.03± 11.74 yrs. Male female ratio was 1: 2.7.Most of them are housewives (61.6%). 22% had family history of headache. Most of the patients had severe (53.4%) and frequent (e”3 per month) headache attacks. Aura was present in 25% patients. Depressive illness was the associated comorbid condition which was found in 15% patients. Bangladesh Journal of Neuroscience 2019; Vol. 35 (1): 22-26

Background: AD is the most common cause of dementia in elderly which causes economic burden for the affected individual, caregivers and society. The objective of this study was to see demographic characteristics among AD patients and it will provide magnitude of the problem and planning of health programme for prevention of disease. Methods: This observational analytical study was carried out in the Neurology ward, OPD and Dementia clinic of BSMMU, Dhaka from May’ 15 to February’ 17. A total of 45 patients were recruited as study population after satisfying all the criteria for enrollment. Results: A total of 27 male and 18 female with mean age of 69.20 ± 11.16 years, constituted as cases. Conclusion: The occurrence of AD found more after the age of 65 years. The present study found that lower educational level is associated with more chance of getting AD. Higher rate of Alzheimer’s disease was found in older man than women. Bangladesh Journal of Neuroscience 2019; Vol. 35 (1): 10-13

Clean technological machining operations can improve traditional methods’ environmental, economic, and technical viability, resulting in sustainability, compatibility, and human-centered machining. This, this work focuses on sustainable machining of Al-Mg-Zr alloy with minimum quantity lubricant (MQL)-assisted machining using a polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tool. The effect of various process parameters on the surface roughness and cutting temperature were analyzed. The Taguchi L25 orthogonal array-based experimental design has been utilized. Experiments have been carried out in the MQL environment, and pressure was maintained at 8 bar. The multiple responses were optimized using desirability function analysis (DFA). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that cutting speed and depth of cut are the most prominent factors for surface roughness and cutting temperature. Therefore, the DFA suggested that, to attain reasonable response values, a lower to moderate value of depth of cut, cutting speed and feed rate are appreciable. An artificial neural network (ANN) model with four different learning algorithms was used to predict the surface roughness and temperature. Apart from this, to address the sustainability aspect, life cycle assessment (LCA) of MQL-assisted and dry machining has been carried out. Energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and processing time have been determined for MQL-assisted and dry machining. The results showed that MQL-machining required a very nominal amount of cutting fluid, which produced a smaller carbon footprint. Moreover, very little energy consumption is required in MQL-machining to achieve high material removal and very low tool change.

Asian lineage A/H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) have been responsible for continuous outbreaks in Bangladesh since 2007. Although clades 2.2.2 and 2.3.4.2 HPAIVs have disappeared since poultry vaccination was introduced in 2012, clade 2.3.2.1a viruses have continued to be detected in Bangladesh. In this study, we identified A/H9N2 (n = 15), A/H5N1 (n = 19), and A/H5N1-A/H9N2 (n = 18) mixed viruses from live bird markets, chicken farms, and wild house crows (Corvus splendens) in Bangladesh from 2016 to 2018. We analyzed the genetic sequences of the H5 HPAIVs, to better understand the evolutionary history of clade 2.3.2.1a viruses in Bangladesh. Although seven HA genetic subgroups (B1–B7) and six genotypes (G1, G1.1, G1.2, G2, G2.1, and G2.2) have been identified in Bangladesh, only subgroup B7 and genotypes G2, G2.1, and G2.2 were detected after 2016. The replacement of G1 genotype by G2 in Bangladesh was possibly due to vaccination and viral competition in duck populations. Initially, genetic diversity decreased after introduction of vaccination in 2012, but in 2015, genetic diversity increased and was associated with the emergence of genotype G2. Our phylodynamic analysis suggests that domestic Anseriformes, including ducks and geese, may have played a major role in persistence, spread, evolution, and genotype replacement of clade 2.3.2.1a HPAIVs in Bangladesh. Thus, improvements in biosecurity and monitoring of domestic Anseriformes are needed for more effective control of HPAI in Bangladesh.

The World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020. COVID-19, the current global health emergency, is wreaking havoc on human health systems and, to a lesser degree, on animals globally. The outbreak has continued since the first report of COVID-19 in China in December 2019, and the second and third waves of the outbreak have already begun in several countries. COVID-19 is expected to have adverse effects on crop production, food security, integrated pest control, tourism, the car industry, and other sectors of the global economy. COVID-19 induces a range of effects in livestock that is reflected economically since human health and livelihood are intertwined with animal health. We summarize the potentially harmful effects of COVID-19 on livestock and possible mitigation steps in response to this global outbreak. Mitigation of the negative effects of COVID-19 and future pandemics on livestock requires the implementation of current guidelines.

Virulent and multi drug resistant (MDR) Salmonellaenterica is a foremost cause of foodborne diseases and had serious public health concern globally. The present study was undertaken to identify the pathogenicity and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles of Salmonellaenterica serovars recovered from chicken at wet markets in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total of 870 cecal contents of broiler, sonali, and native chickens were collected from 29 wet markets. The overall prevalence of S. Typhimurium, S. Enteritidis, and untyped Salmonella spp., were found to be 3.67%, 0.57%, and 1.95% respectively. All isolates were screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for eight virulence genes, namely invA, agfA, IpfA, hilA, sivH, sefA, sopE, and spvC. S. Enteritidis isolates carried all virulence genes whilst S. Typhimurium isolates carried six virulence genes except sefA and spvC. A diverse phenotypic and genotypic AMR pattern was found. Harmonic descending trends of resistance patterns were observed among the broiler, sonali, and native chickens. Interestingly, virulent and MDR Salmonella enterica serovars were found in native chicken, although antimicrobials were not used in their production cycle. The research findings anticipate that virulent and MDR Salmonella enterica are roaming in the wet markets which can easily anchor to the vendor, consumers, and in the food chain.

Many end-users for the stormwater harvesting systems are reluctant in implementing the system due to uncertainties of the potential returns for their investment for such system. A common practice of presenting potential benefit of a certain investment is through calculation of payback period using net annual benefit from the system. Traditional practice of doing such payback period analysis for rainwater tanks was considering individual building/roof, system volume, and specific investment cost. It is not feasible to conduct such analysis for each and every rainwater harvesting system installed in different buildings. To overcome this tedious practice, this study presents development of a generalised equation for the estimation of payback period for rainwater tanks based on roof area, initial cost, and rate of return. Based on an earlier study, several payback periods were calculated for different roof sizes, initial costs, and rate of return. It was found that all these variables can be correlated and embedded into a base equation of power function. Final developed equation results were compared with the payback periods calculated through traditional practice considering net annual savings and net present value of cumulative savings. It is found that the developed equation can estimate payback periods with very good accuracies, for all the selected internal rates of return correlation values ranging from 0.99 to 1.0 were achieved. Corresponding coefficient of determinations varied from 0.988 to 0.993. Furthermore, it is found that for a fixed roof area and rate of return, the payback period is having a power relationship (having an exponent less than 1.0) with the initial cost.

Trichosanthes dioica seed lectin (TDSL), having a molecular mass of 57 ± 2 kDa was purified in an alternative way. For the purification process, the galactose-sepharose-4B affinity column was used. The purified TDSL agglutinated human and mouse erythrocytes at the minimum concentration of 8 μg/ml. d-lactose and d-galactose were the most potent inhibitory sugars as observed. The purified lectin was a glycoprotein having 3.0% of a neutral sugar. The lectin exhibited maximum activity up to 60°C and pH range from 7.0 to 10.0 and stable up to 4.0 M urea as tested. The lectin demonstrated mild toxicity when administered against brine shrimp nauplii, and the LC50 value was calculated to be 84.0 µg/ml. Minimum agglutination of Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells caused by the lectin was found at the protein concentration of 1.56 µg/ml. TDSL inhibited 7, 50.2%, and 60.3% of the EAC cells growth in vivo in mice when administered with 0.75, 1.5, and 3.0 mg kg-1 day-1 (i.p.), respectively, for five consecutive days. After lectin treatment, red blood cell (RBC) and hemoglobin levels were increased significantly toward the normal compared with EAC cells-bearing control and normal mice. The tumor burden reduced to 29.5% and 67% after treatment with 1.5 and 3.0 mg kg-1 day-1 of the lectin. TDSL triggered the cell cycle arrest at the G0 /G1 phase, which was observed using flow cytometry. In conclusion, TDSL can be a candidate for the potent anticancer agents that exerts low toxicity toward brine shrimp nauplii. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: A 57 ± 2 kDa lectin (designated TDSL) was purified from Trichosanthes dioica seeds using a galactose-sepharose-4B affinity column. The lectin demonstrated mild toxicity and agglutinated Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells. The lectin inhibited 50.2% and 60.3% of the EAC cell growth in vivo in mice when administered with 1.5 and 3.0 mg kg-1 day-1 (i.p.), respectively, for five consecutive days. The lectin increased RBC and hemoglobin level toward the normal compared with lectin-treated EAC cells-bearing, EAC cells-bearing control and normal mice. The tumor burden reduced to 29.5% and 67% after treatment with 1.5 and 3.0 mg kg-1 day-1 lectin. TDSL triggered the cell cycle arrest at the G0 /G1 phase. The lectin can be a candidate for potent anticancer agents.

Objective: In this study, we investigated the efficacy and safety of remdesivir and tocilizumab combination therapy against dexamethasone for the management of severe COVID-19 patients.Methods: This was a multicenter study. Cases were randomly chosen and divided into two groups using an odd–even ratio of 1:1 applied to the hospital registration number. Group A received remdesivir [5 mg/kg (40 kg) on day 1 and then 2.5 mg/kg (40 kg) daily] + tocilizumab [8 mg/kg up to 800 mg highest 12 h apart], and group B was the control and received dexamethasone 6 mg/day. In addition, a broad-spectrum antibiotic and other essential treatments were received by all patients. To evaluate the mortality risk, the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score was calculated on day-1. Treatment outcomes were measured as time to clinical improvement; mortality rate; duration of ICU stay; total period of hospitalization; the rate of (Supplementary Material) oxygen use; time to clinical failure; National Early Warning Score-2 (NEWS), and the percentage of lung recovery on CT of chest on discharge. Clinical trial registration ID: NCT04678739.Results: Remdesivir-Tocilizumab group had a lower mortality rate (25.49%) than the control (30.77%). The time to clinical improvement (Group A-9.41; B-14.21 days), NEWS-2 on discharge (Group A-0.89; B-1.2), duration of ICU stay (Group A-7.68; B-10.58), and duration of hospitalization (Group A-9.91; B-14.68) were less in the treatment group. Group A had a better percentage of lung recovery on chest CT than the control (Group A-22.13; B-11.74). All these differences were statistically significant (p= t-test. However, no significant survival benefit was found among the study groups in Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, p = 0.739.Conclusion: The remdesivir–tocilizumab combination had preferable outcomes compared to the dexamethasone therapy for the treatment of severe COVID-19 concerning mortality rate and clinical and pulmonary improvement, although it did not demonstrate a significant survival benefit.Clinical Trial Registration:https://clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04678739.

The purpose of this study is to predict the areas in financial statements susceptive to fraud in the banking sector of Bangladesh. Data of 13 years ranging from 2006 to 2018 of 29 listed banks in Bangladesh were examined for the purpose of this study. Financial data suggested by International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 240 as fraud risk indicators were used as the independent variables and banks identified by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) to be engaged in fraud, scam and heists were taken as dependent variable. Multilayer Perceptron Network (MLP), a class of feedforward Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was used as the analytical tool. It is found that loan disbursement, assets, profit, operating expenses and tax are the areas that can signal the probable fraud in financial statements of the listed banks of Bangladesh. The findings of this study will have policy implications for auditors and the regulators of money market in Bangladesh., {"references":["Agyei-Mensah, D. B. K. 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Trichosanthes dioica seed lectin (TDSL), having a molecular mass of 57 ± 2 kDa was purified in an alternative way. For the purification process, the galactose-sepharose-4B affinity column was used. The purified TDSL agglutinated human and mouse erythrocytes at the minimum concentration of 8 μg/ml. d-lactose and d-galactose were the most potent inhibitory sugars as observed. The purified lectin was a glycoprotein having 3.0% of a neutral sugar. The lectin exhibited maximum activity up to 60°C and pH range from 7.0 to 10.0 and stable up to 4.0 M urea as tested. The lectin demonstrated mild toxicity when administered against brine shrimp nauplii, and the LC

Virulent and multi drug resistant (MDR) Salmonella enterica is a foremost cause of foodborne diseases and had serious public health concern globally. The present study was undertaken to identify the pathogenicity and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles of Salmonella enterica serovars recovered from chicken at wet markets in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total of 870 cecal contents of broiler, sonali, and native chickens were collected from 29 wet markets. The overall prevalence of S. Typhimurium, S. Enteritidis, and untyped Salmonella spp., were found to be 3.67%, 0.57%, and 1.95% respectively. All isolates were screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for eight virulence genes, namely invA, agfA, IpfA, hilA, sivH, sefA, sopE, and spvC. S. Enteritidis isolates carried all virulence genes whilst S. Typhimurium isolates carried six virulence genes except sefA and spvC. A diverse phenotypic and genotypic AMR pattern was found. Harmonic descending trends of resistance patterns were observed among the broiler, sonali, and native chickens. Interestingly, virulent and MDR Salmonella enterica serovars were found in native chicken, although antimicrobials were not used in their production cycle. The research findings anticipate that virulent and MDR Salmonella enterica are roaming in the wet markets which can easily anchor to the vendor, consumers, and in the food chain.

Despite numerous studies on residential rainwater tank, studies on commercial rainwater tank are scarce. Corporate authorities pay little heed on this sustainable feature. With the aim of encouraging corporate authorities, this study presents the feasibility and economic benefits of rainwater harvesting (RWH) in commercial buildings in the capital city of Bangladesh, where water authority struggles to maintain town water supply. The analysis was conducted using a daily water balance model under three climate scenarios (wet, dry and normal year) for five commercial buildings having catchment areas varying from 315 to 776 m2 and the storage tank capacity varying from 100 to 600 m3. It was found that for a water demand of 30 L per capita per day (lpcd), about 11% to 19% and 16% to 26.80% of the annual water demand can be supplemented by rainwater harvesting under the normal year and wet year climate conditions, respectively. The payback periods are found to be very short, only 2.25 to 3.75 years and benefit&ndash, cost (B/C) ratios are more than 1.0, even for building having the smallest catchment area (i.e., 315 m2) and no significant overflow would occur during monsoon, which leads to both economic and environmental benefits. Though the findings cannot be translated to other cities as those are dependent on factors like water price, interest rate, rainfall amount and pattern, however other cities having significant rainfall amounts should conduct similar studies to expedite implementations of widescale rainwater harvesting.

Fatty acids, antioxidant and antimicrobial agents have been received attention for their significant medicinal properties. Dillenia indica plant in Bangladesh has been used as a therapeutic agent for the relief of different disease. The present study focused on the assessment of fatty acid, antioxidant and antibacterial activities of the methyl extract from sepal fiber of Dillenia indica Iodine, saponification and acid values observed in the study indicate the stability of the oil. The fatty acids profile found in this work indicates the presence of higher amount of unsaturated fatty acids leading the significant antibacterial and antioxidant activity done by agar disc diffusion and 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging method, respectively. The extract was more active towards the Vibrio cholerae with the inhibition of 29.65±0.14 ppm against DPPH at IC50. The present results suggesting that the extract could be a reliable source of fatty acids for the welfare of mankind.

The failure data of some products depend on factors or covariates such as the operating environment, usage conditions, etc. Under this situation, the parametric regression model is applied for modeling the failure data of the product as a function of covariates. Divide and recombine (D&R) is a new statistical approach to the analysis of big data. In the D&R approach, the data are divided into manageable subsets, an analytic method is applied independently to each subset, and the outputs are recombined. This chapter applies the D&R approach for analysis of an automobile component failure data using the Weibull regression model. Extensive simulation studies are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology with comparison to the traditional statistical estimation method.

PurposeThe pandemic COVID-19 has affected every sector of an economy in every possible way. Banking sector of Bangladesh has been affected by it badly. The purpose of this paper is to find out the impact of COVID-19 on the liquidity and financial health of the listed banks in Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachLiquidity ratios are calculated to measure the liquidity condition of the banks and revised Altman's Z-Score Model for non-manufacturing companies is used to measure the financial health. The ratios are compared before and during the COVID-19 periods to assess the impact.FindingsThe findings of this study indicate a deterioration of liquidity position and financial health of the listed banks after the emergence of this pandemic. Though the banks have poor liquidity ratios and financial health prior to the emergence of this pandemic, they have decreased more in the second quarter of 2020. Most of the banks have poor liquidity ratios and cash position. The listed Islamic Banks have poor financial health than the listed Commercial Banks and all the banks belong to the red zone in all the quarters.Practical implicationsThe results of this study will have policy implications for companies and regulators of money market.Originality/valueThis paper is a pioneer initiative in assessing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on liquidity and financial health based on empirical data.

In this study, we have evaluated the clinical value of the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) level in predicting the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) in hyperglycemic subjects of Bangladesh. A total of 201 participants were selected for this study and fasting venous blood samples are collected from them for measuring fasting plasma glucose (FPG), serum total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) and HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), hs-CRP, apolipoprotein A-1, apolipoprotein B and lipoprotein(a). CAD risk of study subjects was estimated with the use of Framingham Risk Score (FRS). Out of 201, 91 study participants are found as normal fasting glucose (NFG), 56 as impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and 54 as diabetes mellitus. The average levels of TC, TG, LDL-C, HDL-C, TC/HDL-C ratio, apolipoprotein A-1, apolipoprotein B and lipoprotein(a) in NFG, IFG and diabetes are not significantly different between each group. Statistically significant (p < 0.001) differences are observed between each group of hs-CRP levels. Among the components of FRS; age, systolic blood pressure and HDL-C are significantly correlated with an increase in concentration of FPG. The estimated Framingham 10-year risk of CAD and hs-CRP levels are significantly increasing with the concentration of FPG. Before and after adjusting for covariates (age, sex, smoking status, TC and HDL-C), it is found that FPG is significantly associated with hs-CRP level. Interestingly, serum hs-CRP levels are significantly increased in the higher FPG groups before and after adjustment by covariates. Finally, this study demonstrates hs-CRP as a stronger predictor of cardiovascular events in hyperglycemic subjects thereby helping to assess the risk of CAD induced by hyperglycemia.

Surface finish is one of the vital elements in engineering applications as it directly affects tool wear, adhesion, and friction. This paper deals with the effect of PCD insert on surface roughness under minimum quantity lubricant environment in the machining of Al/Cu/Zr alloy. The whole experiment has been designed using response surface methodology for both PCD and carbide insert. PCD tool performs better than traditional carbide tool by ensuring a substantial reduction in surface roughness under specific constraints. Cutting speed and depth of cut are found as the most dominant variable affecting surface roughness from analysis of variance. 2FI model can reasonably predict the response with a mean absolute percentage error of 3.89% for PCD tool. Moreover, the machining parameters were optimized using desirability function analysis, where it is recommended that lower level of depth of cut and higher value of cutting speed is required to induce favorable value of the response variable.

With the advancement of Computer Vision (CV) classification of sports images is very popular nowadays. Deep learning techniques have become feasible to use and see what happens inside the contents of an image. As videos are the collection of continuous images, or `frames', this technique can be also used in videos. Computer Vision tends to reduce the complexities in the human visualization system and understanding by applying convolutional neural network models to accurately recognize and classify objects from the potential and asymmetrical physical world. Classification of images is now very popular in recent years as the emergence of computer vision technology but it is quite challenging. In this paper, we proposed a VGG16 transfer learning model to classify eighteen categories of various sports and we have created our sports dataset which contains 9000 images. Our proposed model has shown a promising result which is 93%.

The importance of local climate and biodiversity in tropical forest's ability to provide critical ecosystem services is well documented, whereas the relationship among local climatic factors and biodiversity with soil ecosystem functions largely remain unclear. We investigated the importance of local rainfall regime and indicators of plant (tree, herb, and shrub) diversity (richness and abundance) on soil ecosystem functions in two tropical forest ecosystems of north-east Bangladesh. We considered six soil parameters, i.e. soil water regulation (SWR), soil physical stability (SPS), soil microbial habitat (SMH), soil pH (pH), medium of plant growth (MPG), and soil aggregate stability (SAS) as indicators of soil ecosystem functions. Our study finds four rainfall parameters having significant (p < 0.05) positive effects on soil water regulation, soil physical stability, microbial habitat, soil pH, medium of plant growth, and soil aggregate stability. Tree species abundance had positive effects on SPS (p < 0.001) and MPG (p < 0.05), while tree species richness had negative effects on SMH (p < 0.001) and MPG (p < 0.01). Soil aggregate stability was negatively (p < 0.05) affected by tree species abundance, whereas tree species richness positively (p < 0.0001) affected SAS. We found no significant effects of tree species abundance and richness on pH and SWR. The abundance of herbaceous species had positive impacts on MPG (p

This paper has tried to assess the level of Shariah compliance in the operation of the Islamic Banks in Bangladesh. The data were collected from questionnaire survey on 400 respondents from six Islamic banks regarding banking operations and from personal interview with bank officials & regulators of the banks. Other data were attained from different journals, books, Qur’an, Sunnah and the websites of the sample banks. Descriptive statistics are used to analyze the data. Most of the Islamic banks are not complying with the shariah with respect to deposits, investments, audit and other activities. The underlying reasons for the non-compliance are the absence of mandatory Shariah guidelines, lack of Shariah scholarly officials, dual compliance, absence of penalties for non-compliance and some other external factors. If the Central bank and other regulatory bodies are concerned enough to form a uniform guideline for all the Islamic banks operating in Bangladesh, it will be easier for the Islamic banks to comply with Shariah. This is the sole study that deals with different areas of operations in the Islamic Banks to assess the shariah compliance. It has incorporated both survey and interview findings to assess the real picture.