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Global inland aquaculture continues to grow rapidly at an annual rate of 5.8%, increasing competition for other land use thereby generating sustainability concerns. Nigeria is the largest producer of African catfish, yet species-level information is completely scanty in relation to encompassing nature of environmental, social and economic values. In this study, a field survey exercise of the operations, systems and yield of Eriwe fish farm village was conducted with 74 fish farm cooperatives. The present study sought to establish the sustainability status of catfish farming in the region using proposed indicators in the existing literature. Findings revealed catfish farming in the village is economically sustainable with an annual gross margin of $44,539 and $25,868, coupled with a net income of $44,386 and $25,728 for intensive and semi-intensive systems respectively. This was further established with net present value (NPV) of $10,279 and $8323 and benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 2.16 and 2.35 for both systems respectively. Both systems were found to have low labour remuneration < 0.50, which are below the recommended standard of 1. Environmental sustainability indicators revealed 100% of farmers discharged untreated wastewater directly into the river. All catfish farmers in the village contributed to the annual upgrade of road networks and security assurance. Through this study, it was revealed catfish farming is economically sustainable in the region. However, the influence of catfish farming practices on the social factors and ecological values have been given little or no attention.

Bangladesh is located geographically in a vulnerable location. Every year different types of natural disasters like cyclone, flood, Nor'wester, tornado, storm surge, salinity, drought, river erosion, river bed siltation, land slide, etc. visit in our country. Cyclone is a very common phenomenon in our country. Cyclone shelter is the haven place for the coastal people during the cyclonic event. There are various types of cyclone shelters in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. The overall aim of the research is to identify the best types of cyclone shelters for better shelter management. A total of ten types of cyclone shelters are considered to conduct this research work. The qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. A priority index matrix is made to identify the best types of cyclone shelters. Different types of data were analyzed viz. access road conditions, enter and exit facilities, physical elements of the cyclone shelters. From the data analysis, it is identified that type 6 cyclone shelter is the best pattern among ten cyclone shelters. This research finds out some weaknesses of the current shelter management practices like a warning signal, poor condition of the shelter, relief work-related problem, electricity, drinking water, and limited logistic support. Finally, the research also made some recommendations for new builds, existing, and institutional arrangements of cyclone shelters that may help to improve the future establishment of cyclone shelters in coastal areas of Bangladesh. So, the identified better pattern of cyclone shelter will improve the emergency management system by providing better shelter management facilities during an emergency situation of any cyclonic event.

COVID-19 has profoundly impacted global livelihoods and disrupted the food supply chain, including the aquaculture and fisheries industries. Little is known about the response to COVID-19 and the impact it has on incomes, livelihoods and knowledge and practice in the coastal artisanal fishers communities of Bangladesh. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the socio-demographics of selected coastal fishers, their knowledge about COVID-19 and the preventive practice taken to reduce it. The impact on their fishing habits and income was also examined to determine potential policy areas. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire from 250 respondents from three coastal districts, Cox’s Bazar, Patuakhali and Barguna, Bangladesh during April–June 2020. The research shows that the fishers’ knowledge about COVID-19 and measures taken to reduce it were significantly higher in Patuakhali and Barguna than in Cox’s Bazar. The pandemic caused lower consumer demand, reduced fish prices and created fish transportation issues due to movement restrictions enforced during the lockdown. Irrespective of geographical location, fishing trips were reduced by frequency and duration compared with the pre-COVID-19 period, consequently lowering the income of fishers. Fishers have received little or no support from private, non-governmental or governmental sources. Considering the evidence in this paper of economic hardship, this paper recommends artisanal fishers in Bangladesh should be provided with support to improve their health education, access to professional health facilities and financial services. This will contribute to improved food security and sustainable livelihoods that can better withstand local and/or global crises.

Although once perceived as inert structures that merely serve for lipid storage, lipid droplets (LDs) have proven to be the dynamic organelles that hold many cellular functions. The LDs’ basic structure of a hydrophobic core consisting of neutral lipids and enclosed in a phospholipid monolayer allows for quick lipid accessibility for intracellular energy and membrane production. Whereas formed at the peripheral and perinuclear endoplasmic reticulum, LDs are degraded either in the cytosol by lipolysis or in the vacuoles/lysosomes by autophagy. Autophagy is a regulated breakdown of dysfunctional, damaged, or surplus cellular components. The selective autophagy of LDs is called lipophagy. Here, we review LDs and their degradation by lipophagy in yeast, which proceeds via the micrometer-scale raft-like lipid domains in the vacuolar membrane. These vacuolar microdomains form during nutrient deprivation and facilitate internalization of LDs via the vacuolar membrane invagination and scission. The resultant intra-vacuolar autophagic bodies with LDs inside are broken down by vacuolar lipases and proteases. This type of lipophagy is called microlipophagy as it resembles microautophagy, the type of autophagy when substrates are sequestered right at the surface of a lytic compartment. Yeast microlipophagy via the raft-like vacuolar microdomains is a great model system to study the role of lipid domains in microautophagic pathways.

Nucleolar proteins such as Nop1/fibrillarin are degraded by nucleophagy in nutrient-starved conditions. However, whether and how excess nucleolar proteins are removed in normal conditions is unknown. Here we show that overexpressed nucleolar protein Nop1 is toxic and degraded in nutrient-rich conditions in budding yeast. The degradation was dependent on proteasomes. The CUE domain-containing protein Def1 mediated the degradation via the CUE domain and alleviated toxicity of Nop1 overexpression. Def1 was recruited to overexpressed Nop1 in the nucleolus. Ubiquitin mutants compromised this recruitment. This study revealed that Def1 is a novel factor for ubiquitin-dependent degradation of excess nucleolar proteins.

With the rapid growth of the Internet of Healthcare Things, a massive amount of data is generated by a broad variety of medical devices. Because of the complex relationship in large-scale healthcare data, researchers who bring a revolution in the healthcare industry embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI). In certain cases, it has been reported that AI can do better than humans at performing healthcare tasks. The data-driven black-box model, on the other hand, does not appeal to healthcare professionals as it is not transparent, and any biasing can hamper the performance the prediction model for the real-life operation. In this paper, we proposed an AI model for early detection of autism in children. Then we showed why AI with explainability is important. This paper provides examples focused on the Autism Spectrum Disorder dataset (Autism screening data for toddlers by Dr Fadi Fayez Thabtah) and discussed why explainability approaches should be used when using AI systems in healthcare.

In this era of the scientific revolution, speech recognition is an important field. People of the world are connecting by using technology. People are shifting from one country to another, sharing their culture and language. Speech recognition has made it easy by translating most of the languages into a readable format. Our world is moving forward through the era of the digital revolution. Still, there are rudimentary examples of research works on Bangla speech recognition with the advancement of automatic speech recognition (ASR). From a Bangladeshi perspective, we often feel the need of using mixed Bangla-English language in different use-cases, mostly in educational institutions and hospital environments. However, most research works focus on speech recognition in the English language, so we were motivated to develop a mixed Bangla-English language classifier to transcribe isolated mixed Bangla-English spoken digits. We have used an open-source dataset for English, and for Bangla, we created a dataset in a noisy environment by speakers of different ages, gender, and dialects. Finally, for the mixed dataset, we have used Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) for feature extraction and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) classifier to train, test, and analyze data for two different experiments we found promising results.

Mental health is an important aspect of an individual’s well-being which still continues to remain unaddressed. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health has far continued to decline, especially amongst the younger generation. The aim of this research is to raise awareness about mental health while simultaneously working towards removing the societal stigma surrounding it. Thus, in this paper, we have created an integrated chatbot that is specifically geared towards mentally ill individuals. The chatbot responds empathetically which is built using a Sequence-to-Sequence (Seq2Seq) encoder-decoder architecture. The encoder uses Bi-directional Long Short Term Memory (BiLSTM). To compare the performance, we used Beam Search and Greedy Search. We found Beam Search decoder performs much better, providing empathetic responses to the user with greater precision in terms of BLEU score.

Summary: Unsatisfied kinetochore-microtubule attachment activates the spindle assembly checkpoint to inhibit the metaphase-anaphase transition. However, some cells eventually override mitotic arrest by mitotic slippage. Here, we show that inactivation of TORC1 kinase elicits mitotic slippage in budding yeast and human cells. Yeast mitotic slippage was accompanied with aberrant aspects, such as degradation of the nucleolar protein Net1, release of phosphatase Cdc14, and anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C)-Cdh1-dependent degradation of securin and cyclin B in metaphase. This mitotic slippage caused chromosome instability. In human cells, mammalian TORC1 (mTORC1) inactivation also invoked mitotic slippage, indicating that TORC1 inactivation-induced mitotic slippage is conserved from yeast to mammalian cells. However, the invoked mitotic slippage in human cells was not dependent on APC/C-Cdh1. This study revealed an unexpected involvement of TORC1 in mitosis and provides information on undesirable side effects of the use of TORC1 inhibitors as immunosuppressants and anti-tumor drugs.

Auditory attention is a cognitive process that involves listeners to give their attention, which the listener wants to focus on. Consequently, the auditory attention processes their stimulus of interest and decodes it as a response of individuals. This study is aimed to decode the listener’s auditory attention state at continuous hearing complications in different (e.g., by quiet and hypothetical noisy background) environments. There have numerous ways to decode the auditory attention state. Here, we approach the difficulty of auditory attention to the auditory oddball paradigm based on electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. We have carried two experiments and having 840 trials for each listening state (attended and unattended). We have applied a stimulus for the attention detection model and it was verified for decoding the auditory listening attention successfully to listening. Finally, we present the decoding state of acoustic listening attention from electroencephalogram (EEG) signals through a bidirectional long short-term memory (bLSTM) and a support vector machine (SVM) model. The performance of the two models has been compared, and it reveals that these two models perform at a significant accuracy to detect the auditory listening attention state. In the frontal lobe, which is associated with attention, the SVM model has achieved a statistically significant accuracy of 74% at a 50 ms time window.

Face-based biometric authentication systems are being widely used nowadays and this use is on the rise. Because of its conveniences over the traditional access schemes, it is prevailing authentication systems. But this system has the drawback of being vulnerable to spoofing attacks. Attackers can bypass this system by presenting a printed photo or a photo in an electronic display in front of the system. In this work, we have tried to detect facial spoof. We have designed our model based on the fact that the recapturing of an image degrades the image quality. To assess the quality, we have extracted features from the images and created a feature vector. Both full reference and no reference methods have been used as an evaluator of image quality. A support vector machine (SVM) has been used for classifying the images using the feature vectors.

In yeast, the selective autophagy of intracellular lipid droplets (LDs) or lipophagy can be induced by either nitrogen (N) starvation or carbon limitation (e.g. in the stationary (S) phase). We developed the yeast, Komagataella phaffii (formerly Pichia pastoris), as a new lipophagy model and compared the N-starvation and S-phase lipophagy in over 30 autophagy-related mutants using the Erg6-GFP processing assay. Surprisingly, two lipophagy pathways had hardly overlapping stringent molecular requirements. While the N-starvation lipophagy strictly depended on the core autophagic machinery (Atg1-Atg9, Atg18 and Vps15), vacuole fusion machinery (Vam7 and Ypt7) and vacuolar proteolysis (proteinases A and B), only Atg6 and proteinases A and B were essential for the S-phase lipophagy. The rest of the proteins were only partially required in the S-phase. Moreover, we isolated the prl1 (for positive regulator of lipophagy 1) mutant affected in the S-phase lipophagy but not N-starvation lipophagy. The prl1 defect was at a stage of delivery of the LDs from the cytoplasm to the vacuole further supporting mechanistically different nature of the two lipophagy pathways. Taken together, our results suggest that N-starvation and S-phase lipophagy have distinct molecular mechanisms.

Climate services are the use of climate knowledge and information in climate-smart development. This study aims to explore the understanding and level of resilience at community level, including the potential of climate information services in promoting INDC, BCCSAP, LAPA. We also look at the adaptation and mitigation paradigm with smart mobile phones, along with an internet scheme via Short Message Service (SMS), Outbound Dial (OBD), Apps and Call Centre services on agriculture, agro meteorology, weather forecast and early warning system. The study was conducted in South Kharibari village of DimlaUpazila in the Nilphamari district in which a 100 climate vulnerable households are currently using a customized system for increasing resilience in households through climate information services. The study was conducted through explanatory methods, including contextual analyses, case studies, and best practice documentation, FGD, KII and PVA (Participatory Vulnerability Assessment). The study reveals that climate information plays a vital role in climate-resilient development at household level through increased women’s participation in action research and formulation of LAPA. This fortifies their leadership role in food security and energy sectors which are the major focus area of INDC and BCCSAP. Its additionally helping climate-vulnerable women to adapt with changing environment through resilient crop farming, homestead gardening, fisheries, livestock, horticulture and poultry rearing. Thus helping them to develop resilient planning for alternative energy sources in cooking, lighting and other purposes which meets the mitigation needs at the household level.

The blue swimming crab (Portunus pelagicus Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the commercially exploited crab fishery resources in Vietnam. This is the first study to provide a broad survey of genetic diversity, population structure and migration patterns of P. pelagicus along the Vietnamese coastline. The crab samples were collected from northern, central and southern Vietnam. Here, we used a panel of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) generated from restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RADseq). After removing 32 outlier loci, 306 putatively neutral SNPs from 96 individuals were used to assess fine-scale population structure of blue swimming crab. The mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) and expected heterozygosity (He) per locus was 0.196 and 0.223, respectively. Pairwise Fst and hierarchical AMOVA supported significant differentiation of central and northern from southern populations (P

Nutrient starvation and inactivation of target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) protein kinase promotes macroautophagy. Macroautophagy is a lipid-consuming process, and Nem1/Spo7 protein phosphatase and Pah1/lipin phosphatidate phosphatase are activated after TORC1 inactivation, supporting macroautophagy induction in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. On the other hand, whether and how microautophagy, which also consumes lipids, is regulated by TORC1 is controversial. Here we show that TORC1 inactivation induces microautophagy in budding yeast. Vps27, but not Atg1, Atg7, or Atg8, was required for TORC1 inactivation-induced microautophagy. Furthermore, the Nem1/Spo7-Pah1 axis was also critical for microautophagy induction. Thus, the TORC1-Nem1/Spo7-Pah1 axis is a master regulator of not only macroautophagy but also microautophagy in budding yeast.

Clustering of gene expression time series gives insight into which genes may be co-regulated, allowing us to discern the activity of pathways in a given microarray experiment. Of particular interest is how a given group of genes varies with different conditions or genetic background. This paper develops a new clustering method that allows each cluster to be parameterised according to whether the behaviour of the genes across conditions is correlated or anti-correlated. By specifying correlation between such genes,more information is gain within the cluster about how the genes interrelate. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder that kills the motor neurons and results in death within 2 to 3 years from the symptom onset. Speed of progression for different patients are heterogeneous with significant variability. The SOD1G93A transgenic mice from different backgrounds (129Sv and C57) showed consistent phenotypic differences for disease progression. A hierarchy of Gaussian isused processes to model condition-specific and gene-specific temporal co-variances. This study demonstrated about finding some significant gene expression profiles and clusters of associated or co-regulated gene expressions together from four groups of data (SOD1G93A and Ntg from 129Sv and C57 backgrounds). Our study shows the effectiveness of sharing information between replicates and different model conditions when modelling gene expression time series. Further gene enrichment score analysis and ontology pathway analysis of some specified clusters for a particular group may lead toward identifying features underlying the differential speed of disease progression.

Nutrient starvation or inactivation of TORC1 induces separation of rDNA and nucleolar proteins in yeast. Mostofa et al. report that the rDNA tethering CLIP–cohibin system repositions nucleolar proteins to sites proximal to the nuclear–vacuolar junction (NVJ), where micronucleophagy occurs, whereas rDNA moves to regions distal to the NVJ., Nutrient starvation or inactivation of target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) in budding yeast induces nucleophagy, a selective autophagy process that preferentially degrades nucleolar components. DNA, including ribosomal DNA (rDNA), is not degraded by nucleophagy, even though rDNA is embedded in the nucleolus. Here, we show that TORC1 inactivation promotes relocalization of nucleolar proteins and rDNA to different sites. Nucleolar proteins move to sites proximal to the nuclear–vacuolar junction (NVJ), where micronucleophagy (or piecemeal microautophagy of the nucleus) occurs, whereas rDNA dissociates from nucleolar proteins and moves to sites distal to NVJs. CLIP and cohibin, which tether rDNA to the inner nuclear membrane, were required for repositioning of nucleolar proteins and rDNA, as well as effective nucleophagic degradation of the nucleolar proteins. Furthermore, micronucleophagy itself was necessary for the repositioning of rDNA and nucleolar proteins. However, rDNA escaped from nucleophagic degradation in CLIP- or cohibin-deficient cells. This study reveals that rDNA–nucleolar protein separation is important for the nucleophagic degradation of nucleolar proteins.

Autophagy is a process that requires intense membrane remodeling and consumption. The nutrient-responsive TORC1 (target of rapamycin complex 1) kinase regulates autophagy. However, how TORC1 controls autophagy via lipid/membrane biogenesis is unknown. TORC1 regulates the function of yeast phosphatidate phosphatase lipin Pah1 via the Nem1/Spo7 phosphatase complex. Here, we show that the Nem1/Spo7-Pah1 axis is required for autophagy induction after TORC1 inactivation and survival during starvation. Furthermore, this axis was critical for nucleophagy (both micronucleophagy and macronucleophagy) and was required for proper localization of micronucleophagy factor Nvj1 and macronucleophagy receptor Atg39. This study indicated that the Nem1/Spo7-Pah1 axis controlled by TORC1 is a critical branch for autophagy induction in nutrient starvation conditions.

Performance of different Tricho-inocula (Trichoderma harzianum inocula), Tricho-compost (T. harzianum compost) and Provax 200 WP (Carboxin + Thiram group fungicide) for controlling seedling mortality of chickpea was investigated under Sclerotium rolfsii and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri inoculated soil in two different agro-ecological zones viz. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Gazipur and Pulses Research Station, Madaripur of Bangladesh. Tricho-compost was prepared with a mixed substrate of cow dung, rice husk and poultry refuse colonized by T. harzianum. The seedling mortality of chickpea was significantly reduced by the Tricho-inocula, Tricho-compost and Provax 200 WP where Tricho-compost was found superior with respect to reduction of seedling mortality and accelerating plant growth with increasing grain yield of chickpea under pot culture as well as field conditions in two different agro-ecological zones of Bangladesh

Summary: Nutrient starvation and inactivation of target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) protein kinase induce nucleophagy preferentially degrading only nucleolar components in budding yeast. Nucleolar proteins are relocated to sites proximal to the nucleus-vacuole junction (NVJ), where micronucleophagy occurs, whereas rDNA, which is embedded in the nucleolus under normal conditions, moves to NVJ-distal regions, causing rDNA dissociation from nucleolar proteins after TORC1 inactivation. This repositioning is mediated via chromosome linkage INM protein (CLIP)-cohibin complexes that tether rDNA to the inner nuclear membrane. Here, we show that TORC1 inactivation-induced rDNA condensation promotes the repositioning of rDNA and nucleolar proteins. Defects in condensin, Rpd3–Sin3 histone deacetylase (HDAC), and high-mobility group protein 1 (Hmo1), which are involved in TORC1 inactivation-induced rDNA condensation, compromised the repositioning and nucleophagic degradation of nucleolar proteins, although rDNA still escaped from nucleophagic degradation in these mutants. We propose a model in which rDNA condensation after TORC1 inactivation generates a motive force for the repositioning of rDNA and nucleolar proteins. : Nutrient starvation and TORC1 inactivation induce the repositioning of rDNA and nucleolar proteins and nucleophagic degradation of nucleolar proteins in budding yeast. Mostofa et al. report that condensin, Rpd3 HDAC, and Hmo1 promote rDNA condensation, as well as the repositioning and nucleophagic degradation of nucleolar proteins. Keywords: condensin, Hmo1, nucleolus, nucleophagy, rDNA, Rpd3, target of rapamycin complex 1, TORC1

This Prospective study is designed to investigate the efficacy of conjunctival autograft in surgical management of primary pterygium. The study was conducted at Tairunnessa Memrial Medical College and Hospital, Targach, Board bazar,Tongi, Gazipur and Kushtia General Hospital from July 2012 to June 2013. Fifty eyes with primary pterygia were selected for the study.Ptergium was graded depending on the extent of corneal involvement. We excluded the patients with recurrent pterygium, double headed pterygium, dry eye and history of previous intraocular surgery from our study. The mean patient age at the time of surgery was 41.9±8.1 years ranged from 30 to 60 years.The excision of pterygium with conjunctival autograf was done under peribulbar anaesthesia using 8-0 virgin silk.Then the patients were followed up for 12 months. The excision of pterygium with conjunctival auto graft was done by applying same technique. All grafts were intact during the follow up period. There is recurrence in three patients that becomes evident within first three month. Conjunctival autograft is a effective surgical technique for the treatment of pterygium.It is safe and uncomplicated procedure and prevents the recurrence of pterygium. It also reduces the risk of granuloma formation, scleral thinning and necrosis.Medicine Today 2014 Vol.26(2): 75-77

The ACL Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation proposed a translation shared task focused on European language pairs. Participants used their systems to translate into the target language a test set of unseen sentences in the source language. Involved languages were French, English, Spanish, German, Czech and Hungarian. The goal of this work is to quantitatively compare the translations generated by different systems. In particular, a selection of submitted runs for the French-English, German-English and SpanishEnglish tasks were analyzed. The systems involved in our investigation cover all the main approaches to machine translation, that is rule-based, statistical, example-based and hybrid. General Terms Machine Learning, Machine Translation.

Question answering systems use information retrieval (IR) and information extraction (IE) methods to retrieve documents containing a valid answer. Question classification plays an important role in the question answer frame to reduce the gap between question and answer. This paper presents our research work on automatic question classification through machine learning approaches. We have experimented with machine learning algorithms Support Vector Machines (SVM) using kernel methods. An effective way to integrate syntactic structures for question classification in machine learning algorithms is the use of tree kernel (TK) functions. Here we use SubSet Tree kernel with Bag of words. Trade-off between training error and margin, Cost-factor and the decay factor has significant impact when we use SVM for the mentioned kernel type. The experiments determined the individual impact for Trade-off between training error and margin, Cost-factor and the decay factor and later the combined effect for Trade-off between training error and margin, Cost-factor. Depending on these result we also figure out some hyperplanes which can maximize the performance. Based on some standard data set outcomes of our experiment for question classification is promising.