Seasonal activity pattern of Swamp deer (Rucervus duvaucelii duvaucelii) in Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh, India

The data on activity pattern and time budget of Swamp deer (Rucervus duvauceli duvauceli) were collected through instantaneous scan sampling from Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh, India Diurnal activity pattern of Swamp deer showed marked reduction in resting in winter as compared to summer. In winter resting in adult males showed polymodal pattern with peaks occurring at different hours of the day and continued throughout the day without any break. Feeding of adult females in winter and summer seasons showed a polymodal pattern with peaks occurring at different hours of the day without break. In yearling males feeding and resting was observed to occur throughout the day during winter season with peaks occurring between 11:00 to 12:00 hours. Yearling females showed continuous feeding throughout the day with peaks in different times in both the seasons. The seasonal distribution of activity patterns of the fawns showed that feeding was slightly more in summer as compared to winter. In time budget, of the expenditure on different activities, resting accounted for 63.77% and feeding 24.70%. In both the seasons resting was the major portion of their activity. Analysis showed that in all age and sex categories of Swamp deer in the Dudhwa NP, resting dominated on all other activities. The observation on endangered Swamp deer indicates synchronization in activity only in the feeding in the morning and evening hours and resting throughout the day

Determinants of IAS Disclosure Compliance in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Exchangelisted Companies in Bangladesh

The study is an attempt to examine empirically the level of disclosure of financial information upon adoption of International Accounting Standards (IASs) in Bangladesh and the association between a number of corporate attributes and levels of disclosure in corporate annual reports in Bangladesh. An unweighted disclosure index comprising 411 items was prepared and applied to 188 corporate annual reports for years ending between January and December 2003. The association between the extent of disclosure and various corporate characteristics was examined using multiple linear regression models. It was found that corporate size, profitability, stock exchange security category (Zcategory or not), size and international link of company's auditor, and multinational subsidiary are all significantly associated with the extent of disclosure. The results were consistent with some previous studies while they contradict with the findings of some other studies

Does Regulatory Change Improve Financial Reporting Timeliness? Evidence from Bangladeshi Listed Companies

The present study is an attempt to empirically test a research question: whether regulatory change can improve financial reporting timeliness in developing countries. Financial reporting delays in Bangladesh have historically been long. In some cases companies are found to publish results of as many as five financial years at a time. Even in 2003, company audits in many cases can be found to take longer than eighteen months. Long audit delay is one of the main causes behind chronic delay observed in issuing financial statements to shareholders. In a significant move to reduce such delays, the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in the year 2000, imposed a mandatory maximum of 120 days to complete audits of listed companies. This provides an interesting setting to examine the research question set out at the beginning. The paper reports the results of multiple linear regressions to test the possible association between financial reporting timeliness and regulatory change while controlling for relevant corporate and auditor attributes. Two levels of analyses were carried out. First, using observations from 1999 and 2001, and then using the observations from 1999 and 2003. The results show that audit delays could be reduced by effective regulatory change. Subsidiaries of MNCs demonstrate significantly shorter delay while companies who do not pay dividends show significantly longer delays. Company size, audit complexity, return on equity, and audit fees (except for one model) do not appear to have any bearing on audit delay

Prophylactic use of carvedilol to prevent ventricular dysfunction in patients with cancer treated with doxorubicin

Objective: Deterioration in ventricular function is often observed in patients treated with anthracyclines for cancer. There is a paucity of evidence on interventions that might provide cardio-protection. We investigated whether prophylactic use of carvedilol can prevent doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity and whether any observed effect is dose related. Methods: A prospective, randomized, double-blind study in patients treated with doxorubicin, comparing placebo (n = 38) with different doses of carvedilol [6.25 mg/day (n = 41), 12.5 mg/day (n = 38) or 25 mg/day (n = 37)]. The primary endpoint was the measured change in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) from baseline to 6 months. Results: LVEF decreased from 62 ± 5% at baseline to 58 ± 7% at 6-months (p = 0.002) in patients assigned to placebo but no statistically significant changes were observed in any of the 3 carvedilol groups. At 6 months, only one of 116 patients (1%) assigned to carvedilol had an LVEF < 50% compared to four of the 38 assigned to placebo (11%), (p = 0.013). No significant differences were noted between carvedilol and placebo in terms of the development of diastolic dysfunction, clinically overt heart failure or death. Conclusions: Carvedilol might prevent deterioration in LVEF in cancer patients treated with doxorubicin. This effect may not be dose related within the studied range

Seismic Microzonation of Central Khartoum, Sudan

A preliminary seismic microzonation of Central Khartoum, Sudan is proposed. Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, is located at the confluence of White and Blue Niles. The city is heavily populated. The Central Khartoum with its high rise buildings is the center of governmental and business activities and is located on strip adjacent to the Blue Nile. Geological and geotechnical data indicated that the subsoil conditions at Central Khartoum are characterized by alluvial deposits underlain by Nubian Sandstone below a depth of 20 m. The alluvial deposits locally known as Gezira formations, consist of clays grading into silt and sand with depth. Macro seismic zonation of Sudan and its vicinities, developed by the authors, gave the ground acceleration at the bed rock surface. The effect of alluvial deposits at Central Khartoum on propagation of seismic motion parameters to the ground surface is investigated in this study. Correlations are proposed for pertinent cyclic soil properties such as shear modulus, damping, and shear wave velocity. The classical shear beam model developed by Idriss and Seed is used to study the effect of local soil conditions on ground motion parameters. In absence of strong motion records, artificial time histories of ground motion parameters are used. Plots showing the time histories of ground motion parameters at the ground surface are obtained. The results indicated amplification of ground acceleration of up to 1.15. Because of the presence of saturated loose to medium dense sand at some locations within Central Khartoum, the risk of earthquake-induced liquefaction is evaluated. The susceplity of subsoils in Central Khartoum to liguefaction is evaluated probabilistically by modifying the classical method developed by Seed and Idriss. The risk of earthquake-induced liquefaction is computed by combining the seismic hazard and the conditional probability of liquefaction. The study showed that the risk of liquefaction is low

A Miniaturized and Highly Sensitive Microwave Sensor Based on CSRR for Characterization of Liquid Materials

In this work, a miniaturized and highly sensitive microwave sensor based on a complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR) is proposed for the detection of liquid materials. The modeled sensor was designed based on the CSRR structure with triple rings (TRs) and a curve feed for improved measurement sensitivity. The designed sensor oscillates at a single frequency of 2.5 GHz, which is simulated using an Ansys HFSS simulator. The electromagnetic simulation explains the basis of the mode resonance of all two-port resonators. Five variations of the liquid media under tests (MUTs) are simulated and measured. These liquid MUTs are as follows: without a sample (without a tube), air (empty tube), ethanol, methanol, and distilled water (DI). A detailed sensitivity calculation is performed for the resonance band at 2.5 GHz. The MUTs mechanism is performed with a polypropylene tube (PP). The samples of dielectric material are filled into PP tube channels and loaded into the CSRR center hole; the E-fields around the sensor affect the relationship with the liquid MUTs, resulting in a high Q-factor value. The final sensor has a Q-factor value and sensitivity of 520 and 7.032 (MHz)/Er) at 2.5 GHz, respectively. Due to the high sensitivity of the presented sensor for characterizing various liquid penetrations, the sensor is also of interest for accurate estimations of solute concentrations in liquid media. Finally, the relationship between the permittivity and Q-factor value at the resonant frequency is derived and investigated. These given results make the presented resonator ideal for the characterization of liquid materials.Publicad

Date seed extract as preservatives

The increasing demand for minimally-processed. extended shelflife foods and rcpons of ehemical preservatives as having potential toxicity demands food manufacturers to find altcrnative snurccs of anTimicrobial compounds. Food infection and into.~ication are considered as the most common causes of foodborne dir.eases worldwide. Foodbome pathogens cau.ing these diseases find their way in foods through cros, COnTamination. improper handling and temp<;'rature abuse. Food ,poilage microorganisms. On the other hand. cause products to lose thcir quality which renders them unacceptable to consumcrs, Shon shclflife of food products because of spoilage is one of thc major problems of the food induslTy. Examples of food spoilage microorganisms include P-<f:llJO",UlW;' ''':nlgillU.m. 8acilh,,· :Wblilis. I.acrolwdlllls 51' .. StJccho,-o"'yc-es cere,'i,i"e and AS/H'I"gilltr;, lIig"I"

Linguistic Features and Bi-LSTM for Identification of Fake News

With the spread of Internet technologies, the use of social media has increased exponentially. Although social media has many benefits, it has become the primary source of disinformation or fake news. The spread of fake news is creating many societal and economic issues. It has become very critical to develop an effective method to detect fake news so that it can be stopped, removed or flagged before spreading. To address the challenge of accurately detecting fake news, this paper proposes a solution called Statistical Word Embedding over Linguistic Features via Deep Learning (SWELDL Fake), which utilizes deep learning techniques to improve accuracy. The proposed model implements a statistical method called “principal component analysis” (PCA) on fake news textual representations to identify significant features that can help identify fake news. In addition, word embedding is employed to comprehend linguistic features and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) is utilized to classify news as true or fake. We used a benchmark dataset called SWELDL Fake to validate our proposed model, which has about 72,000 news articles collected from different benchmark datasets. Our model achieved a classification accuracy of 98.52% on fake news, surpassing the performance of state-of-the-art deep learning and machine learning models

Immunity and field efficacy of type 2-containing polio vaccines after cessation of trivalent oral polio vaccine: A population-based serological study in Pakistan

Background: In Pakistan and other countries using oral polio vaccine (OPV), immunity to type 2 poliovirus is now maintained by a single dose of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in routine immunization, supplemented in outbreak settings by monovalent OPV type 2 (mOPV2) and IPV. While well-studied in clinical trials, population protection against poliovirus type 2 achieved in routine and outbreak settings is generally unknown.Methods: We conducted two phases of a population-based serological survey of 7940 children aged 6-11 months old, between November 2016 and October 2017 from 13 polio high-risk locations in Pakistan.Results: Type 2 seroprevalence was 50% among children born after trivalent OPV (tOPV) withdrawal (April 2016), with heterogeneity across survey areas. Supplementary immunization activities (SIAs) with mOPV2 followed by IPV improved population immunity, varying from 89% in Pishin to 64% in Killa Abdullah, with little observed marginal benefit of subsequent campaigns. In the other high-risk districts surveyed, a single SIA with IPV was conducted and appeared to improve immunity to 57% in Karachi to 84% in Khyber.Conclusions: Our study documents declining population immunity following trivalent OPV withdrawal in Pakistan, and wide heterogeneity in the population impact of supplementary immunization campaigns. Differences between areas, attributable to vaccination campaign coverage, were far more important for type 2 humoral immunity than the number of vaccination campaigns or vaccines used. This emphasizes the importance of immunization campaign coverage for type 2 outbreak response in the final stages of polio eradication. Given the declining type 2 immunity in new birth cohorts it is also recommended that 2 or more doses of IPV should be introduced in the routine immunization program of Pakistan