A Multistage Budgeting Approach to the Analysis of Demand for Fish: An Application to Inland Areas of Bangladesh

This study was conducted to estimate the elasticities of demand for eight different fish types and four income groups in Bangladesh using year-round data collected from inland areas of the country. It uses a three-stage budgeting framework that estimates a demand function for food in the first stage, a demand function for fish (as a group) in the second stage, and a set of demand functions for fish by type in the third stage using a quadratic extension of the Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model. The Heckman procedure was used in stage three to remove the possible bias in the parameter estimates brought about by zero consumption. The magnitude of both price and income elasticities varies across different fish types and income quartile groups, indicating the relevance of estimation specific to fish types and quartiles. Except for assorted small fish, the other seven fish types included in the study were found to have positive income elasticity for all income levels. Assorted small fish is an inferior commodity for the richest quartile of the population.Bangladesh, fish demand elasticities, Inverse Mills Ratio, multi-stage budgeting, quadratic extension to Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS), Demand and Price Analysis, International Development, Public Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, C3, Q21,

Assessment of genetic variation in selected germplasm of white jute (Corchorus capsularis L.)

Fifty-one genotypes of white jute from different geographic origins were evaluated to study their genetic variability with 11 morphological characters. Significant variation was observed among the genotypes for all the characters. Multivariate techniques were used to classify 51 genotypes. All the genotypes were grouped into six different clusters. Principal component analysis, principal coordinate analysis and canonical vector analysis gave similar results to that of cluster analysis. The highest inter-genotypic distance (1.84) was found between G15, G50 and the lowest distance between G38 and G26. The highest inter-cluster distance (14.37) was observed between cluster I, IV and the lowest distance (2.46) was between cluster III and V. The highest intra-cluster distance was found in cluster I and lowest in cluster V. Considering genetic parameters, high genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) was observed in branches per plant. High heritability values with moderate genetic advance in percentage of mean were obtained for leaf width, petiole length, nodes per plant. Regarding the cluster distance, inter-genotypic distance and other agronomic performance, the genotypes G47, G33, G48 from cluster I; G27, G17, G23 from cluster III and G13, G40, G45 from cluster II were considered to be better parents for future use in hybridisation programmes

PV-Transformer-Less Inverter Topology for Battery-Equivalent DC Supply from Leakage Current

Solar panels used for electricity generation have got inverters as their core components. Such inverters are made from switching devices coupled with additional circuit component configured in a transformer-less topology in recent reported works. A transformer-less topology suffers from the drawbacks of lack of isolation leading to leakage current flow from various points of it down to ground. The leakage in inverters might be troublesome as it may lead to loss in power, and may cause malfunctioning of analog devices normally used in power inverters. In this work, we identify possible leakage currents in a given transformer-less topology using the circuit analysis principles. The conversion of so obtained leakage currents into a useful DC voltage is carried out in this work. This work focuses on converting leakage current into small DC voltage in the range of ~1.1004V using recently reported rectifier circuits, supplying a load of 200Ω in the mW range. Although small in magnitude, such voltage sources could be used for battery charging purposes or driving small loads

Moisture migration in a grain column subjected to drying

In this paper. a mathematical model has been developed to predict temperature and moisture distribution within a column dryer taking into account the influence of the change of air moisture on the grain moisture through the sorption isotherm. In the development of the energy equation, the influence of moisture contents on the properties of the material has been considered. The resulting unsteady, nonlinear, coupled differential equations are solved numerically, using orthogonal collocation method. A detail parametric study has been performed to identify important variables. The model is also applied to predict moisture migration under conditions approximating both low and high temperature in-storage drying of grains. The predicted results show good agreement with the experimental values

Happy edges: Threshold-coloring of regular lattices

We study a graph coloring problem motivated by a fun Sudoku-style puzzle. Given a bipartition of the edges of a graph into near and far sets and an integer threshold t, a threshold-coloring of the graph is an assignment of integers to the vertices so that endpoints of near edges differ by t or less, while endpoints of far edges differ by more than t. We study threshold-coloring of tilings of the plane by regular polygons, known as Archimedean lattices, and their duals, the Laves lattices. We prove that some are threshold-colorable with constant number of colors for any edge labeling, some require an unbounded number of colors for specific labelings, and some are not threshold-colorable. © 2014 Springer International Publishing

Optimizing of planting density on the growth and yield of aromatic fine rice in rainfed condition

A field experiment was carried out at the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) farm, Mymensingh, Bangladesh during July to December, 2010, in view to find out the optimum plant spacing for the highest yield of aromatic fine rice grown in rain fed season. The experiment was carried out with four aromatic fine rice (V1= BRRI dhan34, V2= Ukunimadhu, V3= Basmati and V4= Kataribhog) and four different plant spacings (S1= 15cm×15cm, S2= 20cm × 15cm, S3= 20cm × 20cm, S4= 20cm × 25cm). The experiment was laid out in split-plot design with three replications assigning variety in the main plot and the spacing in the sub plot. It was observed that almost all the plant characters and yield were significantly affected by the aromatic fine rice and plant spacing. Among the spacings tested against the four varieties, the highest grain yield was obtained at 20 cm × 15 cm and 20 cm × 20 cm spacing. The spacing 20 cm×15 cm and 20 cm × 20 cm were proven more appropriate because it produced more number of effective tillers hill-1 more number of grains panicle-1 and ultimately produced the higher grain yield than other two spacings. Among the varieties Kataribhog, Basmati and Ukunimadhu produced higher grain yield at 20 cm × 15 cm and 20 cm × 20 cm

Development of E-banking in Bangladesh: A Survey Study

E-Banking is being grownup speedily in Bangladesh. The recent exceptional advancement in data technology and smartphones’ convenience has brought important changes in banks' services in Bangladesh. Notably, banks are presently competitory to supply complete banking services via smartphones or through on-line platforms. Such digital banking services cut back long queues within the bank’s counter to withdraw cash/ to deposit cash to their accounts