Search

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) fibrous membranes with fiber diameter from nanoscale to microscale were prepared by electrospinning. The structural parameters of PVDF fibrous membrane in terms of fiber diameter, pore size and its distribution, porosity or packing density, thickness, and areal weight were tested. The relationship between solution concentration and structural parameters of fibrous membrane was analyzed. The filtration performance of PVDF fibrous membrane in terms of air permeability and filtration efficiency was evaluated. The results demonstrated that the higher solution concentration led to a larger fiber diameter and higher areal weight of fibrous membrane. However, no regular change was found in thickness, porosity, or pore size of fibrous membrane under different solution concentrations. The air permeability and filtration efficiency of fibrous membrane had positive correlations with pore size. The experimental results of filtration efficiency were compared with the predicted values from current theoretical models based on single fiber filtration efficiency. However, the predicted values did not have a good agreement with experimental results since the fiber diameter was in nanoscale and the ratio of particle size to fiber diameter was much larger than the value that the theoretical model requires.

In this study, polypropylene meltblown nonwoven fabrics with different structure parameters such as fiber diameter, pore size, and areal density were prepared by the industrial production line. The morphology of meltblown nonwoven fibers was evaluated by using scanning electron microscope, and the diameter of fibers was analyzed by using image-pro plus software from at least 200 measurements. The pore size of nonwoven fabric was characterized by a CFP-1500AE type pore size analyzer. The filtration efficiency and pressure drop were evaluated by TSI8130 automatic filter. The results showed that the pressure drop of nonwoven fabrics decreased with the increase in pore size; the filtration efficiency and the pressure drop had a positive correlation with the areal density. However, when the areal density is in the range of 27–29 g/m2, both filtration efficiency and pressure drop decreased with the increase of areal density; when the areal density was kept constant, the filtration efficiency decreased as the pore size decreased; when the pore size of the meltblown nonwoven fabric is less than 17 μm, the filtration efficiency increased as the pore diameter decreased; when the pore diameter of the nonwoven fabric is larger than 17 μm. In a wide range, the pressure drop decreased as the fiber diameter decreased.

The study describes traditional fishing gears and crafts available at Gumti river of Muradnagarupazila in Cumilla district, Bangladesh. The study was carried out by the collection of primary data through surveying individual fishermen. We found that there are 6 fishing gears available in the study area. Among them, 5 types of the fishing net (i.e., cast nets, seine net, lift net, push net, gill net) and a kind of fishing trap was identified. We also found 4 different types of crafts, including dinginauka, koshanauka, chandinauka, and sototempu. Synthetic twines are used for net making, which increases the fishing efficiency significantly. The life span of these nets varies according to their building materials. Sun-drying was the best approach for net preservation rather than using any chemicals or medicine. Besides, traditionally mehogany, raintree, shill koroi, garjan, gamari, jarul, chapulis woods and bamboos were found to be boat construction materials. The boats are painted with tar or pitch and burn oil for the protection. No modern instruments such as a compass, life-saving equipment are used by these boats. Most of the boats are mechanized, i.e. operated by engine. Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. September 2020, 6(3): 469-474

Near-surface disposal is anticipated to be the preferred option for the disposal of low and intermediate levels of radioactive waste in Bangladesh. A geographic information system (GIS) and a multi-criteria analysis were used for screening all of Bangladesh to identify potential areas to establish a near-surface disposal facility (NSDF). Five main data criteria, namely geology, hydrology, climatology, pedology and socio-economy, were used in the analysis and were further sub-divided into 14 sub-criteria. Layers of these sub-criteria graded on a scale of 0–5 were used as raw data for the analysis, where 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 indicate excluded area, completely unsuitable, unsuitable, moderately suitable, suitable and most suitable, respectively. Finally, a suitability map was generated using the analytic hierarchy process and GIS software, which indicated about 1.78% (2621.88 km2) of the total area to be most suitable for the construction of a NSDF in Bangladesh.

Cholesterol granuloma is a rare benign tumour and is described as inflammatory granulation that occurs in response to the deposition of cholesterol crystals. It is found most commonly in the paranasal sinuses or temporal bones, but there are also rare reports of their occurrence in the peritoneum, parotid gland, lymph nodes, thyroglossal duct, kidney, liver, and spleen. Involvement of the ribs has rarely been described previously. We report a case of cholesterol granuloma involving chest wall in second intercostals space of a 74-year-old male who presented with a slowly growing lesion of the anterior aspect of right side of the chest. Cardiovasc. j. 2020; 12(2): 158-161

In this study, the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) were investigated. Altogether 100 stool samples we...

Purpose: In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 target of reduction in under-five mortality below 25 per thousand live birth by the year of 2030, major reductions are going to be required in neonatal mortality. Congenital anomalies have become the fourth cause of neonatal deaths and most of these are curable. The largest public hospital of Bangladesh is serving the poor and lower middle class people where surgery and medical facilities are mostly free of cost. This study was done to see the types of neonatal surgical patients admitted in this hospital and their management out come with limited facilities and find out some new ideas and information and the ways to improve the scenario to contribute in achieving the SDG 3. Materials & Methods: This was a descriptive study with retrospective record review of all admitted neonates done over a period of 17 years from July 2001 to June 2018 and carried out in the Department of Pediatric Surgery. A total of 2492 neonates were admitted during this period and it was the 16.16% of total number of 15414 pediatric surgical admission upto12 years of age. Data was collected from hospital records and analyzed retrospectively. Detail history of each patient was collected and recorded in a pre-designed, semi-structured questionnaire. Statistical assessments were done by SPSS version 22. An Ethical clearance had been sought. Results: Out of these 2492 neonates, 1932 (77.53%) were admitted for Neonatal Intestinal Obstruction (NIO) and Intestinal atresia 246 (09.87%), Omphalocele 163 (06.54%), Meconium ileus 154 (06.18%), Volvulous neonatoram 125 (05.02%), Septicemia 114 (04.57%), Posterior urethral valve 78 (03.13%), Gastroschisis 75 (03.01%), Abscess 57 (02.29%), Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia 54 (02.17%), Ectopia vesicae 50 (02.01%), Infantile pyloric stenosis 42 (01.68%), Tracheo-oesophageal fistula 24 (0.96%), Prune belly syndrome 8 (0.32%), Neonatal injury 5 (0.20%), Conjoint twin 4 (0.16%). The most common cause of NIO was anorectal malformation (ARM) 806 (32.34%). Among them 516 (64.02%) patients had high variety and 290 (35.98%) patients had low variety ARM. Next was Hirschsprungs disease and 487 (19.54%) neonates presented with this. One hundred and forteen (4.57%) patients presented with septicemia and 246 (9.87%) presented with intestinal atresia, 154 (6.18%) neonates had meconium ileus and 125 (5.02%) patients presented with volvulus neonatorum. Total 1791 (71.86%) patients were managed surgically. Most of the surgerical procedures were pelvic colostomy 541 (21.71%), transverse colostomy and biopsies 376 (15.09%), resection and anastomosis 261(10.47%), anoplasty 239 (9.59%), primary repair 135 (5.42%) and ileostomy 104(4.17%). Out of 2492 patients, 351 died, so mortality was 14.09%, before surgery 127 (5.10%) and after surgery was 224 (14.85%). Conclusion: Pediatric surgeons by their skill and teamwork greatly improved the neonatal surgical service and contributing significantly in reducing infant mortality rate to achieve SDG 3. But to improve further, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and other support systems are essential as well as support from UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO) to include pediatric surgery and surgeons in their activities especially in developing countries. Due to socio-political and economic reasons of the developing countries the roll of pediatric surgeons are multidimensional. Bangladesh Med Res Counc Bull 2020; 46(1): 05-11

Background and Aim: Global trend to remove the antibiotic growth promoter (AGP) from animals contributes to the exploration of successful measures to sustain production and reduces the intestinal diseases in the post-AGP era. Plant extracts, therefore, have been used to improve performance and intestinal health. Here, we conducted a study to evaluate the effects of neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf extracts (NLE) as alternatives to AGPs in broiler chickens. Materials and Methods: Sixty day-old broiler chicks were assigned to 12-floor pens, each stocked with five birds and divided into three treatment groups of four pens per treatment. The groups were: Negative control, basal diet without additives; positive control, basal diet with antibiotics and vitamins; and NLE treated group, basal diet supplemented with 0.1% aqua extract of neem leaves. Results: Overall feed intake was significantly (p≤0.05) highest in the positive control. Higher body weight, higher dressing percentage, and lower feed conversion ratio were observed in birds treated with NLE compared to the negative control group (p≤0.05) but not the positive control group (p>0.05). There was no significant variation in hematology between different groups. Furthermore, the economic evaluation indicated that the NLE treatment was found cheaper than control and antibiotic treatment in cost-benefit analysis. Conclusion: We suggest NLE might be a cheaper alternative to antibiotics in broiler production as indicated by improved body weight and feed efficiency.

OBJECTIVE Cortical resilience can be defined as the ability of the cortex of the human brain to rebound efficiently from perturbation. This concept is important in both research and clinical practice contexts. However, no direct measure of cortical resilience exists. Inhibitory variants of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, such as continuous theta burst stimulation, provide a standardized method for inducing a perturbation; when coupled with the assessment of recovery rate from the perturbation, such a paradigm might provide a standardized measure of cortical resilience. This article describes a standardized method for quantifying cortical resilience using theta burst stimulation protocols. METHODS A descriptive overview of a method for assessing cortical resilience is presented. Links are drawn between critical facets of the resilience construct and the protocol described. RESULTS The Cortical Challenge and Recovery Test (CCaRT) method makes use of existing stimulation parameters and cognitive testing paradigms to provide a flexible and conceptually meaningful measure of cortical resilience. CONCLUSIONS The CCaRT paradigm is potentially useful in research and contexts where cortical resilience is to be measured. The CCaRT paradigm has applicability to epidemiological studies and laboratory experimentation as well as diagnostic practice and clinical trial outcome measures.

Solder joints can experience fatigue cracking at the interface between the solder and substrate during thermal cycling due to the difference in thermal expansion between joined components. In order to strengthen the interfacial region and prevent cracking, two Cu pad surface treatments were studied on Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu solder, and on matte Sn plate and Ni plate coatings. The resulting intermetallic microstructures were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy. Mechanical testing was performed using nano-indentation on the solder joints. The matte Sn plate on Cu sample formed an uneven distribution of Ag3Sn particles and a planar Cu6Sn5 interfacial intermetallic. The Ni-plated sample formed a needle-like Ni-rich interfacial intermetallic and uniform dispersion of Ag3Sn particles. The rough intermetallic compound (IMC)/solder interface and even IMC particle distribution cause the Ni-plated sample to experience reduced damage under board-level thermomechanical cycling because the interfacial structure reduces the Sn matrix recrystallization that contributes to fatigue cracking. In contrast, the matte Sn-plated sample exhibited an Ag3Sn particle-free zone adjacent to a planar Cu6Sn5 IMC layer which allows for rapid Sn recrystallization and fatigue crack propagation.

Researchers face difficulties in finding relevant papers to their research interest as the number of scientific publication is rapidly increasing on the web. Scientific paper recommenders have emerged as a leading solution to help researchers by automatically suggesting relevant and useful publications. Several approaches have been proposed on improving recommender systems. However, most existing approaches depend on priori user profiles, and thus they cannot recommend papers to new user. Furthermore, the existing approaches utilize non-public contextual information, and thus it cannot adequately find similarities between papers due to copyright restrictions. Also, the existing approaches consider only single level paper-citation relation to identify similarities between papers. Considering the above challenges, this paper presents a collaborative filtering based recommendation approach for scientific papers that does not depend on priori user profiles and which utilizes only public contextual information. Using citation context, we utilized 2-level paper-citation relations to find hidden associations between papers. The rational underlying this approach is that, two papers are co-occurred with same cited paper(s) and two papers are co-occurring with same citing paper(s) are significantly similar to some extent. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, publicly available datasets are used to conduct extensive experiments. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach has significantly outperforms the baseline approaches in terms of precision, recall, F1, mean average precision, and mean reciprocal rank, which are commonly used information retrieval metrics. The novelty of this study is that, with the proposed approach, researchers are able to find relevant and useful publications over the internet regardless of their previous research experiences and research area.

The burgeoning growth of Big Data not only matures and improves the data management efficiency and useful information extraction techniques, but also motivates the computational science researchers to come up with a new method or solution that can be repurposed for problems across the domain. Computational Sustainability joins this movement for a transferrable computational technique for sustainable development and a better future. Internet-of-energy (IoE) - leveraging IoT to smart grids associated with advanced analytics - is one of the prominent efforts in this regard. This paper presents a qualitative analysis on the elements of the energy and power management ecosystem in the United States. This qualitative study includes the Grid Overview of the United States; Weather and Climate and its impact on the entire energy generation and consumption dynamics; Peak Load Forecasting and its techniques and burgeoning challenges; Variable Renewable Energy, its reliability challenges and how we can take advantage of this variability; Commodity Prices and its criticality; Energy Disaggregation and its impact on consumption-awareness; and Generation Expansion and Decision Analysis. Besides, IoE integration, associated trade-offs, challenges, research opportunities and transferable computational techniques are addressed in this communication. Furthermore, schematics and quantitative analysis are presented in support of this study.

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is infamous for tomato-infecting viruses and causes a huge loss of the yield irrespective of the planting time. So, in order to find out the effect of different planting time on TYLCV disease of tomato and its impact on yield. A study was carried out at the Department of Plant Pathology, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh during the period of October 2016 to May 2017. Two popular BARI released variety namely BARI Tomato-14 and BARI Tomato-16 were used in this study that was transplanted at three different planting times (1st planting time on 1st November 2nd planting time on 15th November and 3rd planting time on 1st December 2016). The lowest percent TYLC disease incidence (12.42%) and percent disease severity (15.37%) were found in 3rd planting (1st December) in BARI Tomato-16 variety, respectively. Under the present study, considering the percentage of TYLC disease incidence and severity, BARI tomato-16 on 1st December showed better performance comparing others. The 3rd planting (1st December) and BARI Tomato-16 variety were found to have the highest yield (77.23 ton/ha) and promising the lowest level of percentage of disease incidence (12.42%) and percent disease severity (15.37%) against TYLCV. A strong positive correlation was obtained between the whitefly population and the percent disease incidence of TYLCV. The whitefly population and the yield of tomato were negatively correlated with each other. The yield was also found significant and negatively correlated with the percentage of TYLCV disease incidence.

Atmospheric gravity waves (GWs) are important in driving the middle and upper atmosphere dynamics on Earth. Here, we provide a brief review of the most common techniques of retrieving gravity wave activity from observations. Retrieval of gravity wave activity from observations is a multi-step process. First, the background fields have to be removed as the retrieval of the wave activity highly depends on this. Second, since a broad spectrum of internal waves contributes to atmospheric fluctuations, the contribution of GWs has to be extracted carefully. We briefly discuss the strengths, limitations/barriers, and applications of each technique. We also outline some future research questions to improve the treatment of these wave extraction methods.

The empirical study involves detecting vulnerable images in social media. Use a vulnerable image detection dataset with a 78% data accuracy rate using a graph neural network. The study investigates that sharing vulnerable pictures on social networks might cause cyberbullying or stalking victims leads to many stressful events. The inexcusable behavior by many people is encompassing in the digital world. This phenomenon leads to threats of violence, slander, or even leakage of personal images may be included. The study associates vulnerability detection with the pictures posted on social media. In this way, the people of the society will be able to identify the vulnerable images and help to build social awareness. The ability of GNN to model the dependence between nodes in a network allows for a breakthrough in graph analysis research. A graph autoencoder framework can help GNNs solve the network embedding challenge. The approach associate's construction of a custom dataset with two classes, involve Vulnerable and Nonvulnerable images. We declare image size and batch size. After creating the GNN model data is trained using 10 epochs and then plot the accuracy and loss curve. The significance of the accuracy rate reached a satisfactory level. For the statistical approach, a confusion matrix is constructed to compare the actual and prediction data this helps to understand the performance of the proposed model. Graph neural network is very effective to classify images and other things. The findings constructed a Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) is an effective framework for representation learning of graphs.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have received considerable interest in recent years. These sensor nodes can gather information from the surrounding environment and transmit it to a designated location. Each sensor node in WSN typically has a battery with a limited capacity. Due to their large number and because of various environmental challenges, it is sometimes hard to replace this finite battery. As a result, energy-efficient communication is seen as a critical aspect in extending the lifespan of a sensor node. On the other hand, some applications that require large coverage and generate various sorts of data packets require multi-hop routing and quality of service (QoS) features. Therefore, in order to avoid network failure, these applications need an energy-efficient QoS MAC protocol that can support multiple levels of data packet priority and multi-hop routing features while focusing on energy conservation. An energy-aware QoS MAC protocol based on Prioritized Data and Multi-hop routing (EQPD-MAC) is proposed in this article. The EQPD-MAC protocol offers a simple yet effective cross-layer communication method. It provides timely delivery of multi-priority packets, uses an adaptive active time to limit idle listening, and integrates a robust routing protocol. Finally, the EQPD-MAC protocol’s performance was evaluated and compared to three other well-known QoS MAC protocols. The simulation findings show that the proposed protocol significantly decreases sensor node energy consumption by up to 30.3%, per-bit energy consumption by up to 29.6%, sink node energy consumption by up to 27.4% and increases throughput by up to 23.3%.

ImportanceMost epidemiologic studies examine the brain as an outcome in relation to adiposity (ie, the brain-as-outcome perspective), but it is also a potential risk factor associated with adiposity accumulation over time (ie, the brain-as–risk factor perspective). The bidirectionality hypothesis has not been fully explored in adolescent samples previously.ObjectiveTo assess bidirectional associations between adiposity and cognitive function in youth and test mediational pathways through brain morphology (specifically the lateral prefrontal cortex [LPFC]), lifestyle behaviors, and blood pressure.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis cohort study uses data (wave 1-3; 2 years of follow-up) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a long-term longitudinal investigation of brain development in the United States launched in 2015, which recruited 11 878 children aged 9 to 10 years at inception. Data analysis was performed from August 2021 to June 2022.Main Outcomes and MeasuresMultivariate multivariable regression analyses were used to assess bidirectional associations of indicators of cognitive function (eg, executive function, processing speed, episodic memory, receptive vocabulary and reading skills) and adiposity (eg, body mass index z scores [zBMI] and waist circumference [WC]). Mediators considered for this investigation were lifestyle variables (eg, diet and physical activity), blood pressure, and the morphology of the LPFC and its subregions.ResultsA total of 11 103 individuals (mean [SD] age, 9.91 [0.6] years; 5307 females [48%]; 8293 White individuals [75%] and 2264 Hispanic individuals [21%]) were included in the current study. Multivariate multivariable regression analyses revealed that higher baseline zBMI and WC were associated with worse follow-up episodic memory (β, −0.04; 95% CI, −0.07 to −0.01) and better vocabulary (β, 0.03; 95% CI, 0.002 to 0.06) task performance, in covariate adjusted models. Similarly, superior baseline executive function (zBMI: β, −0.03; 95% CI, −0.06 to −0.01; WC: β, −0.04; 95% CI, −0.07 to −0.01) and episodic memory (zBMI: β, −0.04; 95% CI, −0.07 to −0.02; WC: β, −0.03; 95% CI, −0.06 to −0.002) task performance were associated with better follow-up adiposity status in covariate adjusted models. Cross-lagged panel models with latent variable modeling had a bidirectional association with executive function task performance (brain-as-outcome: β, −0.02; 95% CI, −0.05 to −0.001; brain-as–risk factor: β, −0.01; 95% CI, −0.02 to −0.003). The hypothesized associations were statistically mediated by LPFC volume and thickness, physical activity, and blood pressure.Conclusions and RelevanceIn this cohort study, executive function and episodic memory were bidirectionally associated with adiposity indices over time in this adolescent sample. These findings suggest that the brain can be both a risk factor and an outcome of adiposity; this complex bidirectional association should be taken into account in future research and clinical practice.