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Abstract Background Antimicrobials like fourth-generation cephalosporins, carbapenems, or β-lactams are widely used in treatment of febrile neutropenia (FN). The present study aimed to compare the efficacy of cefepime, meropenem, and piperacillin/tazobactam as initial treatment for chemo-induced FN in patients with hematological malignancy. Methods This was an observational study conducted in the Department of Hematology of Dhaka Medical College Hospital from July 2020 to June 2021 including 99 adult FN patients with hematological malignancy who were randomized equally to three treatment arms to receive cefepime, meropenem, or piperacillin/tazobactam as an empirical antibiotic. Response to therapy was defined as improvement in symptoms (e.g., defervescence) or in laboratory values including neutrophil counts on day 3 and day 7 after the initiation of the therapy. Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test were used to compare the efficacy of the treatment regimens. Results Response rate to initial treatment with different antibiotic regimens was similar without any statistically significant difference (60.6%, 63.6%, and 51.5% on day 3 and 63.6%, 75.8%, and 66.7% on day 7 for cefepime, meropenem, and piperacillin/tazobactam, respectively, p-value > 0.05) irrespective of underlying diagnosis, the severity of neutropenia, and cause of fever. Conclusion Initial therapy with cefepime, meropenem, or piperacillin/tazobactam is safe and equally effective in chemo-induced FN in patients with hematological malignancy. This finding may be considered in clinical practice for optimum therapeutic outcomes.

Abstract Background Hemophilia is one of the commonest inherited bleeding disorders which may lead to chronic bleeding tendencies and life-long disabilities if not properly managed. Knowing the pattern of the disease aids in the prevention of disability and improvement of quality of life in hemophilia. However, there is a dearth of literature on the issue in Bangladesh. So, this study was designed to explore the frequency and site of spontaneous bleeding in moderate and severe hemophilia patients visiting in a tertiary level hospital. Methods This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the department of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) Center in Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka between February 2020 and August 2020. A total of 44 diagnosed cases of moderate to severe hemophilia were included in the study according to inclusion criteria. A detailed inquiry of history, thorough physical examination and relevant investigations were done and were recorded in case-record form. Informed written consent was taken from patients or their guardians where appropriate. All procedures were done according to Declaration of Helsinki. After entry and checking, data was analysed using SPSS version 26. Results Out of 44 participants, 25 (56.8%) and 19 (43.2%) had moderate and severe hemophilia. Mean age of the study population was 21.31 (± 9.78) years with the majority aged between 11 and 20 years (45.5%). All sociodemographic features were similar across severity. Hemophilia A and B was found in 90.9% and 9.1%, respectively. However, all type B patients severe hemophilia making it statistically significantly different from type A (p = 0.029). The median age of first bleeding was 3.5 years and median age of first diagnosis was 5 years. Nevertheless, approximately 67.4% patients were diagnosed as a case of hemophilia at the time of their first diagnosis. The median spontaneous bleedings episodes among all patients was 32 (range: 0–97) which did not different significantly between severe and moderate patients. The most common affected (target) joint was knee joint (88.6%) followed by elbow joint (64%) among all patients. The knee joint was more commonly involved in severe than moderate disease. Conclusion This study observed the variations in pattern and frequency of spontaneous bleeding in patients with hemophilia. Severe disease was more frequent in hemophilia B than A and knee joint was the most frequent site of bleeding. However, further extensive studies are recommended.

Critics and research scholars, so far have observed and considered Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s (1880-1932) Sultana’s Dream to be a feminist utopia- an imaginary place of ideal perfection or any non-existent society described in her considerable detail-overlooking main purpose, to an extent, in writing the novella. When the idea of female emancipation and awakening was completely unknown and unimaginable to Indian women in general, Begum Rokeya tried to instill its zeal in these ignorant women, got them to believe in their power, and showed a way of their ultimate freedom as something real and possible through a dream. The bitter discrimination she experienced in her own family as a girl, and the misfortune of the women of her society and women of undivided India bled her soft heart and urged her to work for the advancement and empowerment of women breaking all the traditional, social, cultural and religious barriers. In this regard, besides quality education, she believed that the first and the most important condition for female emancipation is self-reliance or economic independence where she differed from all other major contemporary feminists of the world for her unequivocal approach. The paper, therefore, aims at exposing the pathetic consequences of deprived and distressed women drowned under the dirt of illiteracy, fanaticism, superstitions, and prejudices showing the way they can be educated, economically solvent, self-reliant towards ultimate freedom and attributed state power and responsibilities which Begum Rokeya presents in the disguise of a dream in Sultana’s Dream.

Streptococcosis is one of the most important diseases of a wide range of freshwater and marine fishes. Objectives of the present study were to isolate and identify the pathogens of streptococcosis like infection in silver barb (Barbonymus gonionotus) using phenotypic, molecular, and artificial infection challenge test; investigate the antibiogram profile of the pathogenic isolates; and sequence the whole-genome of a virulent strain. Bacteria were isolated from different organs of diseased fish on Streptococcus selective media. Phenotypic identification of randomly selected isolates was performed through morphological, physiological, and biochemical tests. Molecular identification was done by 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses. Artificial infection challenge test was performed in B. gonionotus through intraperitoneal injection. To investigate the antibiogram profile, 15 commercial antibiotic disks and 24 medicinal plant extracts were screened by disk diffusion-assay. The whole-genome of a selected strain BFPS6 was sequenced by using an Illumina MiSeq platform. In this study, a total of 20 out of 30 randomly selected isolates were phenotypically identified as Enterococcus sp. The 16S rRNA gene sequence homology of 10 randomly selected isolates revealed that these isolates exhibited 99–100% sequence homology with Enterococcus faecalis. The lowest and highest median lethal doses (LD50) of the pathogenic isolates in B. gonionotus were obtained 5.54 × 106 CFU/ml and 8.03 × 108 CFU/ml for the isolates BFPS6 and BFPS13, respectively. The isolates showed resistance to multiple antibiotics but susceptibility to three medicinal plant extracts (Spondias mombin, Allium sativum, and Syzygium aromaticum). The genome size and average G+C content of the strain BFPS6 were 2866,855 bp and 37.5%, respectively. The genome contains 2743 CDS, 55 tRNA, 5 rRNA, 9 repeat regions, and one CRISPR sequence. This is the first report on identification and whole-genome sequence of E. faecalis isolated from B. gonionotus suffering from streptococcosis like infection.

Our food choices, food production pathways and household behaviors together govern the impact that our diet has on our health as well as the environment. As the planetary population grows, there is an increasing awareness of the need to both improve the quality of our diets for health reasons and to reduce its impact on the Earth. From the consumer perspective, however, it is not always clear which healthy diet options and behaviors contribute most to reductions in our dietary footprint. In this paper we model and contrast the impact of the current American diet and three recommended diets from the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans on six environmental dimensions of the dietary footprint: land area required, blue water use, fertilizer application, primary energy input, ammonia emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions based on LCIA studies. For each diet we test the relative impact of a shift in diet composition, caloric intake and the reduction in food waste on the dietary footprint. We find that there are multiple pathways to significantly reduce the environmental impact of our diets. Shifts in diet composition from the current diet to a vegetarian diet had the greatest impact on reducing the dietary footprint, however, combinations of reducing caloric intake from 2,600 to 2,000 kcal/d combined with 50% reduction in food waste could achieve similar results in some cases. In line with results of other studies, we find that reducing red-meat and dairy contribute most to reducing the dietary footprint. However, recommended increases in fruits and vegetables with dietary shifts are accompanied by significant increases in blue water use. By combining a number of incremental shifts in diet composition, intake level, and food waste, significant land currently under production could be spared from production for other uses while still providing a nutritious diet for all.

Glioblastoma is recognized as World Health Organization (WHO) grade IV glioma with an aggressive growth pattern. The current clinical practice in diagnosis and prognosis of Glioblastoma using MRI involves multiple steps including manual tumor sizing. Accurate identification and segmentation of multiple abnormal tissues within tumor volume in MRI is essential for precise survival prediction. Manual tumor and abnormal tissue detection and sizing are tedious, and subject to inter-observer variability. Consequently, this work proposes a fully automated MRI-based glioblastoma and abnormal tissue segmentation, and survival prediction framework. The framework includes radiomics feature-guided deep neural network methods for tumor tissue segmentation; followed by survival regression and classification using these abnormal tumor tissue segments and other relevant clinical features. The proposed multiple abnormal tumor tissue segmentation step effectively fuses feature-based and feature-guided deep radiomics information in structural MRI. The survival prediction step includes two representative survival prediction pipelines that combine different feature selection and regression approaches. The framework is evaluated using two recent widely used benchmark datasets from Brain Tumor Segmentation (BraTS) global challenges in 2017 and 2018. The best overall survival pipeline in the proposed framework achieves leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) accuracy of 0.73 for training datasets and 0.68 for validation datasets, respectively. These training and validation accuracies for tumor patient survival prediction are among the highest reported in literature. Finally, a critical analysis of radiomics features and efficacy of these features in segmentation and survival prediction performance is presented as lessons learned.

OBJECTIVES: Due to the frequent use of coronary angiography the awareness of Takotsubo stress cardiomyopathy (TSC) has increased although the exact pathophysiology of TSC is still largely unknown. Our objective was to investigate the effects of mental stress on myocardial function, heart rate variability (HRV) and salivary cortisol (SC) in TSC patients. DESIGN: This study is a case-control study and a sub-study of the Stockholm Myocardial Infarction with Normal Coronaries (SMINC) study. SETTING: Mental stress test was performed more than 6 months after the acute event in TSC patients and age- and sex-matched controls. Standard echocardiography and tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) -derived time-phases of cardiac cycle were recorded to calculate myocardial performance index (MPI) to assess ventricular function before and during mental stress. Holter-ECG recording was made to estimate HRV before, during and after mental stress. SC was measured at baseline, before and 20 minutes after mental stress. SUBJECTS: Twenty-two TSC patients and 22 sex-and age-matched controls were recruited from the SMINC-study and investigated with a mental stress test. All TSC patients had a previous normal cardiovascular magnetic resonance investigation. RESULTS: There were no significant differences at rest or during mental stress for left and right ventricular MPI or other standard diastolic variables between TSC patients and controls. HRV did not differ between TSC patients and controls. There was a trend towards less increase in SC after mental stress in TSC patients compared to controls. CONCLUSION: Mental stress did not induce a significant difference in myocardial function or HRV response between TSC and controls. Moreover, no significant difference could be seen in SC response at baseline, during or after mental stress. This study indicates that myocardial vulnerability to mental stress does not persist in TSC patients.

The development of sustainable and effective methods for extracting lignin is crucial for achieving the advantages and promoting the shift towards a more sustainable and circular bioeconomy. This study addresses the use of environmentally friendly processes, including organosolv technique, supercritical fluid (SCF), non-thermal plasma (NTP), ionic liquids (ILs), deep eutectic solvents (DES), and microwave assisted extraction (MAE) techniques for lignin extraction. Organosolv treatment offers high selectivity and purity of lignin make this process economically feasible. Using supercritical water, carbon dioxide, or ethanol to extract lignin without harmful solvents is successful and customizable. NTP technologies break down lignin, simplifying processing and increasing its value. Whereas ILs may boost lignin synthesis and change its properties via solvent design. DES-based extraction methods can efficiently and specifically extract lignin. The rapid and effective MAE method employs microwave radiation to reduce extraction times and boost yields for lignin extraction. These methods feature high selectivity, little environmental impact, and the capacity to target lignin fractions. The study describes the fundamentals, benefits, and drawbacks of each extraction process, focusing on their ability to extract lignin on a large scale and its future usage. Additionally, this review explores the most recent advancements in the application sector, as well as the challenges and potential advantages of valorizing streams derived from extraction, thereby fostering the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable solutions. This research concludes that to overcome future challenges, need to address scale concerns, cost, emissions, and efficient lignin use.

Micronutrient zinc (Zn) is crucial for both humans and plants. To improve the micronutrient concentration in the grains of food crops, biofortification has already been established as one of the best approaches across the globe. The current study was carried out to assess Zn enrichment in a few common wheat varieties using different Zn delivery techniques. The following treatments were applied: T 1 : control (without Zn), T 2 : Soil application of 4 kg Zn ha-1 at final land preparation, T 3 : Foliar application of a 0.5% Zn solution (ZnSO 4 x7H 2 O) at both tillering and booting stages, and T 4 : soil application of 2 kg Zn ha-1 at final land preparation + foliar application of a 0.2% Zn solution (ZnSO 4 x7H 2 O) at both tillering and booting stages. All treatments were arranged in a split-plot design and repeated three times The findings of the study revealed that the various Zn application techniques had an impact on the Zn concentration in grains significantly, ranging from 23.9 to 32.2 µg g-1 across the varieties, with an average of 28.2 µg g-1 in the control. Among these various application techniques, the soil + foliar application induced the highest response of the Zn concentration in the grains ranging from 33.7 to 37.60 µg g-1. The average protein content (%) in the grains of all wheat varieties varied by 1.21, 1.47, and 1.51%, respectively, as a result of the use of the different Zn application methods. Considering the Zn-use efficiency (%), the most Zn-efficient wheat variety was BARI Gom 28, followed by BARI Gom 26, Binagom-1, BARI Gom 25, and BARI Gom 29. In the case of grain yield, wheat variety BARI Gom 26 (4.15 t ha-1) performed the best in the soil + foliar Zn application. The soil + foliar application method outperformed the other application techniques regarding the Zn concentration, yield, and protein content in the grain.

In recent years, the field of emerging computer vision systems has witnessed significant advancements in automated disease diagnosis through the utilization of vision-oriented technology. This article proposes an optimal approach for detecting the presence of ailments in Rohu fish. The aims of our research is to identify the most significant features based on Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) feature selection and evaluate the best performance among all features for Rohu fish disease recognition. At the outset, diverse techniques for image preprocessing were employed on the acquired images. The region affected by the disease was partitioned through utilization of the K-means clustering algorithm. Subsequently, 10 distinct statistical and Gray-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features were extracted after the image segmentation. The ANOVA feature selection technique was employed to prioritize the most significant features N (where 5 ≤ N ≤ 10) from the pool of 10 categories. The Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique, often known as SMOTE, was applied to solve class imbalance problem. After conducting training and testing on nine different machine learning (ML) classifiers, an evaluation was performed to estimate the performance of each classifier using eight various performance metrics. Additionally, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated. The classifier that utilized the Enable Hist Gradient Boosting algorithm and selected the top 9 features demonstrated superior performance compared to the other eight models, achieving the highest accuracy rate of 88.81%. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that the feature selection process reduces the computational cost.

This study aimed to provide environmental surveillance data for evaluating the risk of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 in public areas with high foot traffic in a university. Air and surface samples were collected at a university that had the second highest number of COVID-19 cases among public higher education institutions in the U.S. during Fall 2020. A total of 60 samples were collected in 16 sampling events performed during Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. Nearly 9800 students traversed the sites during the study period. SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in any air or surface samples. The university followed CDC guidance, including COVID-19 testing, case investigations, and contact tracing. Students, faculty, and staff were asked to maintain physical distancing and wear face coverings. Although COVID-19 cases were relatively high at the university, the possibility of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infections at the sites tested was low.

Major malnutrition in Bangladesh is zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe) deficiency as most people commonly depend on cereals, chiefly rice and wheat. The main objectives are to enhance Zn and Fe concentrations through the use of selected varieties and the application of respective fertilizers. Field experiments were conducted at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) farm, Mymensingh (AEZ 9, non-calcareous soil) and at Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) substation, Ishwardi (AEZ 11, calcareous soil) for two consecutive wheat seasons (2014–15 and 2015–16) with 10 varieties and 15 advanced lines. Varieties BARI Gom 25, 27, 28 & 29 and breeding lines Vijay, HPYT-5, 15 & 21 and BL-1883 have been recognized as Zn-enriched wheat varieties (24–30 μg g−1). Among the genotypes, Zn further increased by 4–8 μg g−1 due to Zn fertilization. Concerning Fe-enriched wheat genotypes (24–30 μg g−1), five varieties viz. Shatabdi, Prodip, BARI Gom 25 & 28 and Sufi, and four lines such as HPYT-12, BL-1883, BL-1040 and Fery-60 have been identified. The grain Fe concentration of wheat genotypes increased when Fe was added, the increment being 6–12 μg g−1. A positive relationship between Zn and N is observed with increased protein content. The grain yield of wheat was increased by 3.8–25.7% due to Zn application over the varieties and locations but Fe addition had no effect. The result of the current study showed that a potential breeding line with appropriate fertilization can improve Zn and Fe levels in wheat grain, without incurring loss to wheat yield.

Financial technology (fintech) has disrupted the traditional financial system by decoupling, decentralizing, and demystifying finance. Effective and scalable adoption of fintech, however, is key to financial inclusion and value creation through new business models. While theoretical frameworks and models in the literature investigate technology adoption in general, a measurement scheme for customer readiness specifically for fintech is absent. We conduct a National Citizen Survey in Bangladesh (N = 1282), review extant literature on fintech adoption factors and variables, distill major themes into seven dimensions. In this paper, we propose the Customer Fintech Readiness (CFR) index to assess readiness to adopt and use customer facing fintech product, platforms and services. We validate the index and establish its easy replicability, albeit with small contingent adjustments. We find that customers in Bangladesh lag behind in readiness for fintech. Our dimension specific scores provide important insights for policy intervention and planning. While our dataset remains gender-imbalanced and depends on customer self-reporting, we delineate ways to fine-tune its construction for better replication of CFR in other countries.

Background: Minimum acceptable diet (MAD) is a core indicator of infant and child feeding practices (IYCF). Meeting the MAD is essential to enhance the nutritional status of children aged 6–23 months. Objective: To identify the determinants of meeting the MAD among children aged 6–23 months in Bangladesh. Methods: The study was based on a secondary dataset of the 2017–2018 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS 2017–18). Complete (weighted) data from 2,426 children aged 6–23 months were analyzed. Results: The overall percentage of meeting the MAD was 34.70%, whereas, in terms of urban and rural, it was 39.56% and 32.96%, respectively. Age of the children 9–11 months [Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 3.54; 95% CI: 2.33–5.4], 12–17 months [AOR = 6.72; 95% CI: 4.63–9.77], and 18–23 months [AOR = 7.12; 95% CI: 1.72–5.98], the maternal primary [AOR = 1.75; 95% CI: 1.07–2.86], secondary [AOR = 2.3; 95% CI: 1.36–3.89], and higher education [AOR = 3.21; 95% CI: 1.72–5.98], currently working mothers [AOR = 1.45; 95% CI: 1.13–1.79], mothers' access to mass media [AOR = 1.29; 95% CI: 1–1.66], and at least four antenatal care (ANC) from medically skilled providers [AOR = 1.74; 95% CI: 1.39,2.18] were independent determinants of meeting the MAD. Conclusions: Many children are still far behind in meeting the MAD. Nutritional interventions like improved nutrition recipes, nutrition education and homemade food supplementation, nutritional counseling by home visits, community mobilization, health forums, antenatal and postnatal sessions, and media campaigns on IYCF are needed to meet MAD practice.

Objectives This paper explores the Bangladeshi tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) legislative environment, to highlight any potential policy loopholes and to facilitate the identification of additional provisions for inclusion. The study also aimed to identify valuable lessons applicable to other low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).Methods We conducted a qualitative health policy analysis using the health policy triangle model to frame the collection and extraction of publicly available information from academic literature search engines, news media databases and websites of national and international organisations, published up until December 2020. We coded and analysed textual data using the thematic framework approach to identify themes, relationships and connections.Results Four themes underpin the Bangladesh legislative environment on TAPS: (1) engaging international actor interest in TAPS policies, (2) the incremental approach to TAPS policy-making, (3) time-sensitive TAPS monitoring data and (4) innovative TAPS monitoring and policy enforcement system. The findings highlight the role of international actors (such as multinational organisations and donors), tobacco control advocates and the tobacco industry in the policy-making process and the competing agendas they bring. We also outline the chronology of TAPS policy-making in Bangladesh and the existing loopholes and policy changes over time. Lastly, we describe the innovative approaches to TAPS monitoring and policy enforcement in Bangladesh to combat the tobacco industry marketing strategies.Conclusion This study highlights the role of tobacco control advocates as crucial in TAPS policy-making, monitoring and enforcement in LMICs, and identifies good practices for the sustainability of tobacco control programmes. However, it also points out that tobacco industry interference, coupled with increasing pressure on advocates and legislators, may block progress in tobacco endgame approaches.

The role of education is to be reflective (about what? Why? and how?) in preserving the civilization identity and human capability of a nation. This is particularly true because education is the cornerstone to building human capability and capacity that can develop a country. A well-formulated educational goal will serve as a moral compass for individuals in order to be fully aware of the reasons behind their existence. Education should lead a person to be reflective of his/her life, jettison vague norms or ideas and to chat the future on the right direction. Determining or articulating the goals of education have always been a challenge, be it present or in the past due to it multifaceted manifestation in a different aspect of society. This study provides a capsule representation of what should be the goal (s) of education by looking into arguments and opinions of past education philosophers and scholars. It is concluded that the goal of education is diverse along historically and civilization spectrum but the essence--as human development remains its nucleus.

Background: Despite the Government of Bangladesh's considerable efforts, utilization of antenatal care (ANC) services remains low among Bangladeshi women, notably those from rural areas. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the utilization and underlying factors affecting the utilization of ANC among women of reproductive age in rural Bangladesh. Methods: We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study in three sub-districts of the Rangpur division, Bangladesh, from May 31, 2021, to June 9, 2021. A total of 1195 women with a live birth preceding the survey participated in the study. We used a multivariate logistic regression model to examine the association between all potential factors and the utilization of ANC4/4+ services. Multicollinearity and Hosmer-Lemeshow test was conducted to check the regression model's goodness fit test. Results: The rate of utilization of ANC4/4+ services by women in the three sub-districts of the Rangpur division was 71.7%. Women with more age, education, having more than five members in a family, and being involved in any income-generating activities were more likely to utilize ANC4/4+ in this study. Conclusion: The study found an insufficiency in ANC4/4+ usage, which might lead to missed opportunities for women in rural Bangladesh to have improved maternal outcomes. Particular focus should be given to women's higher education and prioritizing women's autonomy in health seeking issues in the rural women to increase the utilization of ANC4/4+.

Bangladesh is experiencing an increasing prevalence of diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Considering daily total requirement of 5 servings as minimum recommended amount, 95.7% of people do not consume adequate fruit or vegetables on an average day in the country. Imposition of lockdown during COVID-19 created disturbance in fresh fruits and vegetable production and their retailing. This incident can make these dietary products less affordable by stimulating price and trigger NCDs. However, little is known about the supply chain actors of healthy foods such as vegetables and fruits in urban areas, and how they were affected due to pandemic. Aiming toward the impact of COVID-19 on the business practices and outcomes for the vegetables and fruits retailers in Bangladesh, a survey of 1,319 retailers was conducted in two urban areas, namely Dhaka and Manikganj from September 2021 to October 2021. To comprehend the impact of COVID-19 on the profit margin of the retailers and on the percentage change in sales, a logistic and an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression were estimated. Significant difference in the weekly business days and daily business operations was observed. The average daily sales were estimated to have a 42% reduction in comparison to pre-COVID level. The daily average profit margin on sales was reportedly reduced to 17% from an average level of 21% in the normal period. Nevertheless, this impact is estimated to be disproportionate to the product type and subject to business location. The probability of facing a reduction in profit margin is higher for the fruit sellers than the vegetable sellers. Contemplating the business location, the retailers in Manikganj (a small city) faced an average of 19 percentage points less reduction in their sales than those in Dhaka (a large city). Area-specific and product-specific intervention are required for minimizing the vulnerability of retailers of vegetables and fruits and ensuring smooth supply of fruits and vegetables and increasing their uptake to combat diet related NCD.

Adoption factors of Financial Technology (Fintech) services have been the subject of investigation in a growing body of extant literature. Macro-level as well as user-specific factors that contribute to the adoption of customer-facing fintech services have been studied. Emerging market studies mostly considered targeted demographic and socio-economic segments, limiting their ability to reflect a wide spectrum of relevant factors. We conducted a nationwide representative survey of 1282 individuals in Bangladesh. A total of 16 administrative districts from all 8 administrative divisions were included. Addressing sample imbalance with Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE), we deployed Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) to reduce number of customer features down to the most important. Using Library of Large Linear Classification (LIBLINEAR) for multivariate Logistic Regression, we identified significant features that predict customer-facing fintech adoption among individual respondents. We found that customers were less likely to adopt fintech services if they had higher reported levels of concern with security, information secrecy, limited government control, and high levels of reported service intuitiveness obstacles. Our evidence suggests these concern factors constitute the prominent factor behind fintech adoption, as opposed to demographic variables, for example. Our findings hold insights for fintech services providers and policy makers.