Access to common property resource and poverty reduction: inland open-water fisheries in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, experiences from good practices for a Common Property Resources (CPR) identified that it is necessary to choose CPR members from the resource users with clearly defined rights to use the resource with defined physical boundary. The long-term security of tenure is a precondition for establishment of common property resources in the water bodies by the users (mainly fishers and adjoining agriculturists of the water body) themselves. The sustainability of such CPRs depends on the equity in sharing expenses and income; monitoring by the users themselves; graduated sanctions for violations of CPR rules; and development of local forums for resolving conflicts.Resource management

PlaceRaider: Virtual Theft in Physical Spaces with Smartphones

As smartphones become more pervasive, they are increasingly targeted by malware. At the same time, each new generation of smartphone features increasingly powerful onboard sensor suites. A new strain of sensor malware has been developing that leverages these sensors to steal information from the physical environment (e.g., researchers have recently demonstrated how malware can listen for spoken credit card numbers through the microphone, or feel keystroke vibrations using the accelerometer). Yet the possibilities of what malware can see through a camera have been understudied. This paper introduces a novel visual malware called PlaceRaider, which allows remote attackers to engage in remote reconnaissance and what we call virtual theft. Through completely opportunistic use of the camera on the phone and other sensors, PlaceRaider constructs rich, three dimensional models of indoor environments. Remote burglars can thus download the physical space, study the environment carefully, and steal virtual objects from the environment (such as financial documents, information on computer monitors, and personally identifiable information). Through two human subject studies we demonstrate the effectiveness of using mobile devices as powerful surveillance and virtual theft platforms, and we suggest several possible defenses against visual malware

Governance and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Exploring the Relatinship Between Governance and Sdgs Using an International Comparative Perspective

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between governance and sustainable development goals from an international comparative perspective. The research question of the study was: Does the performance level of governance affect the achievement of SD specifically in terms of reducing poverty, gender inequality, and human inequalities? This study has used the convenient sampling method to select 16 countries based on their income level and secondary data collected from the UNDP, World Bank for statistical analysis. We did the Hausman test to decide whether used fixed effects or random effects and found the Hausman test was significant P=.000. It suggested that the fixed effects model outcome was consistent and unbiased to inform the findings. Descriptive statistics have shown that both SD goals and governance metrics have improved in performance over time. On the other hand, regression outcomes showed that governance indicators positively affect poverty, gender inequality, and human inequalities but sometimes it might be different

DETERMINANTS OF SUSTAINABLE USE OF IMPROVED YAM PRODUCTION PRACTICES AMONG FARMERS IN EBONYI STATE, NIGERIA

The study examined determinants of sustainable use of improved yam production practices among farmers inEbonyi State, Nigeria. A total of one hundred and twenty farmers were selected across the state using multi-stagesampling procedure. Data collection was achieved by using a well-structured questionnaire and personalinterview. Data analysis made use of frequency counts, percentages, mean scores and multiple regressionanalysis. Results obtained revealed that out of twenty two (22) improved yam production practices disseminatedby Ebonyi State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP), fourteen (14) are currently being used by farmersin the area. These include; storage in barns (x = 4.6), harvesting in 7 – 12 months(x = 4.5), staking (x = 4.4), use ofNPK 12:12:17 (x = 4.2), yam-cassava relay intercrop (x = 4.0), weeding (x = 4.0), yam-melon intercrop ( x = 3.5),band placement of fertilizer (x = 3.5), among others. Results of the multiple regression analysis revealed thatincome level, age of respondents, cost of yam production, socio-cultural acceptability, economic viability,farming experience, level of education, extension contact and awareness of farmers were all important andsignificant variables affecting sustainable use of improved yam production practices in the study area. Given theenormous potentials and importance of yam in the area, it has become imperative that youths be encouraged toparticipate effectively in yam production, because majority of farmers in the area are aged and retiring fromactive production practices. This will ensure food security. Also relevant inputs like fertilizers, herbicides andplanting materials should be subsidized by government. This will help reduce the cost of production of the crop

A Comparative Study Of Spectrum Sensing Methods For Cognitive Radio Systems

With the increase of portable devices utilization and ever-growing demand for greater data rates in wireless transmission, an increasing demand for spectrum channels was observed since last decade. Conventionally, licensed spectrum channels are assigned for comparatively long time spans to the license holders who may not over time continuously use these channels, which creates an under-utilized spectrum. The inefficient utilization of inadequate wireless spectrum resources has motivated researchers to look for advanced and innovative technologies that enable an efficient use of the spectrum resources in a smart and efficient manner. The notion of Cognitive Radio technology was proposed to address the problem of spectrum inefficiency by using underutilized frequency bands in an opportunistic method. A cognitive radio system (CRS) is aware of its operational and geographical surroundings and is capable of dynamically and independently adjust its functioning. Thus, CRS functionality has to be addressed with smart sensing and intelligent decision making techniques. Therefore, spectrum sensing is one of the most essential CRS components. The few sensing techniques that have been proposed are complicated and come with the price of false detection under heavy noise and jamming scenarios. Other techniques that ensure better detection performance are very sophisticated and costly in terms of both processing and hardware. The objective of the thesis is to study and understand the three of the most basic spectrum sensing techniques i.e. energy detection, correlation based sensing, and matched filter sensing. Simulation platforms were developed for each of the three methods using GNU radio and python interpreted language. The simulated performances of the three methods have been analyzed through several test matrices and also were compared to observe and understand the corresponding strengths and weaknesses. These simulation results provide the understanding and base for the hardware implementation of spectrum sensing techniques and work towards a combined sensing approach with improved sensing performance with less complexity

Effect of Predictor Dependence on Variable Selection for Linear and Log-Linear Regression

We propose a Bayesian approach to the Dirichlet-Multinomial (DM) regression model, which uses horseshoe, Laplace, and horseshoe plus priors for shrinkage and selection. The Dirichlet-Multinomial model can be used to find the significant association between a set of available covariates and taxa for a microbiome sample. We incorporate the covariates in a log-linear regression framework. We design a simulation study to make a comparison among the performance of the three shrinkage priors in terms of estimation accuracy and the ability to detect true signals. Our results have clearly separated the performance of the three priors and indicated that the horseshoe plus prior outperforms both horseshoe and Laplace priors under low dependence for the compositional data model in the Dirichlet-Multinomial regression framework. We have also seen that heavy dependence among the covariates reduces the rate of variable selection and deteriorates the estimation errors compared to low dependence

Stories of change : case study challenge 2019-2020

Modern India has a history of a vibrant and active social sector. Many local development organisations, community organizations, social movements and non-governmental organisations populate the space of social action. Such organisations imagine a different future and plan and implement social interventions at different scales, many of which have lasting impact on the lives of people and society. However, their efforts and, more importantly, the learning from these initiatives remains largely unknown not only in the public sphere but also in the worlds of ‘development practice’ and ‘development education’. This shortfall impedes the process of learning and growth across interventions, organizations and time