Eccentrically loaded strip footing on a sand layer overlaying a rigid stratum

2 volsAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D76831 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

The characterization of unsaturated soil behaviour from penetrometer performance and the critical state concept

In 2 vols.Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN020657 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

In-store losses of rice and ways of reducing such losses at farmers’ level: An assessment in selected regions of Bangladesh

The study aimed at assessing the in-store losses of rice caused by biotic and abiotic factors in the storage structures/containers at farmers’ level. The farmers’ suggested ways of reducing in-store losses of rice are also discussed. A total of 96 villages covering 26 Upazilas under 14 civil districts across all the divisions of the country were selected for present investigation. The districts were put under five different regions to capture the dimensions of study. In all, 1360 samples of Aus, Aman and Boro rice farmers were selected randomly and purposively from the study areas and put into marginal, small, medium and large farm category based on their land ownerships. Data were collected through pre-tested questionnaires. Different traditional rice storage structures/containers like Dole, Berh, Inside-house Gola, Outside-house Gola, Steel/Plastic drums, Motka, Gunny bag and Plastic/Polythene bags were commonly used by farmers in the study areas. The storage time of rice varied from 3.05 to 7.24 months irrespective of rice, farm and region with the overall average being 5.5 months. Significant losses in stored rice occurred through the activities of both biotic and abiotic factors. The average in-store losses occurred for Aus, Aman and Boro rice were respectively 3.68, 3.80 and 4.12% with the aggregated average being 3.92%. The average in-store losses of rice in large, medium, small and marginal farmers were 4.48, 3.92, 4.0 and 3.59% respectively. The in-store losses occurred in regions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were 3.31, 5.23, 3.62, 4.44 and 3.25% respectively. The farmers suggested a number of ways for reducing in-store losses of rice including training on capacity building and awareness for safe storage, credit for constructing durable storage structure, construction of common storage structures at village/union level, preventive measures against biotic and abiotic factors, supplying farmers with durable storage containers and keeping them well ahead informed about the natural calamities

IMPACT OF AN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT ON TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION AND CROP YIELDS OF RESOURCE POOR FARMERS IN BANGLADESH

An agricultural development project targeted to resource poor households disseminated a wide range of crop, livestock, fisheries, agro-processing and non-farm technologies to enhance their yield, income and food security. In this paper, impact of the project on acquisition of knowledge and adoption of the promoted technologies are measured as these are critical intermediate steps to achieve increased yield, income and food security. A combination of project and control, and before intervention and after intervention was used to assess impact of the project activities. It appeared that for technologies which were more vigorously promoted through knowledge dissemination and input supply, both incidence of knowledge and adoption increased significantly in the project areas, and in some cases net change in adoption was more than in knowledge acquisition perhaps because previously people knew certain technologies but did not practice them due to some constraints which were removed by the project activities. Net change in the yield of several crops was 8-21% in the project areas. The findings indicate that even when technologies are scale neutral, poor and marginal farmers may not be aware about them and may not adopt them or adopt inadequately due to lack of knowledge and access to inputs and services. Therefore, much social gains can be derived by designing and implementing extension, information dissemination and input supply programmes targeted to such households so that they may have access to better knowledge, technology and inputs to make best use of their meagre land, labour and capital resources to improve productivity and income and improve food security

Uptake of phenol from aqueous solution by burned water hyacinth

The potential of burned water hyacinth (BWH) for phenol adsorption from aqueous solution was studied. Batch kinetic and isotherm studies were carried out under varying experimental conditions of contact time, phenol concentration, adsorbent dosage and pH. The pH at the point of zero charge (pH(PZC)) of the adsorbent was determined by the titration method and the value of 8.8 š 0.2 was obtained. The FTIR of the adsorbent was carried out in order to find the potential adsorption sites for the interaction with phenol molecules. The Freundlich and Langmuir adsorption models were used for the mathematical description of adsorption equilibrium and it was found that the experimental data fitted very well to the Langmuir model. Maximum adsorption capacity of the adsorbent was found to be 30.49 mg/g. Batch adsorption models, based on the assumption of the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models, were applied to examine the kinetics of the adsorption. The results showed that kinetic data closely followed the pseudo-second-order model

Rural consumers’ financial literacy and access to FinTech services

The study aims to show the impact of financial knowledge among rural consumers’ access to financial technology services. In general, knowledge regarding any particular fact helps consumers to select or reject different options. Therefore, knowledge regarding financial services is considered a factor that influences access to financial technology services. This study carries out a survey-oriented method with a structured questionnaire. According to the data category, this study uses three well-known econometric models: logistic regression, probit regression, and complementary log–log regression, have been experimented. This study finds that knowledge regarding various factors significantly impact on access to financial technology services. Mainly, this study has important practical significance for the use of rural finance and financial technology in rural areas, which affects the entire economy