Does Microfinance Reduce Poverty in Bangladesh? New Evidence from Household Panel Data

The purpose of the present study is to examine whether microfinance reduces poverty in Bangladesh drawing upon the nationally representative household panel data covering 4 rounds from 1997 to 2005. A special attention was drawn to the issue of endogeneity by applying treatment effects model and propensity score matching (PSM) for the participants and non-participants of microfinance programmes. It has been found by treatment effects model applied to panel data that the simple household access to general loans from microfinance institutions (MFIs) did not increase per capita household income significantly, but household access to loans for productive purposes from MFIs significantly increased per capita household income. This suggests that the purpose and monitoring of how clients use the loans is important for increasing household income, and thus decreasing household poverty. However, the application of treatment effects model and PSM to each cross-sectional component of the panel data shows that the poverty reducing effect of MFI on poverty was significantly reduced over the years. This suggests the importance of more attention to the primary purpose of microcredit, that is, poverty reduction, and also to monitoring loan usages in the situations where the profits of MFIs became increasingly squeezed and their activities became more commercialised under severe competitions among MFIs in recent years.microfinance, MFI (microfinance institution), Microcredit, Poverty, Bangladesh

Theoretical and numerical methods for predicting ship-wave impact generated sea spray

Spray generated by ships traveling in cold oceans often leads to topside ice accretion, which can be dangerous to vessels. To develop a full methodology of goal based design for ice accretion there are two critical knowledge gaps, both of which are complex to close, and require new methods and techniques. One is a comparison of ice accretion rates for different structures in the same icing conditions. The second knowledge gap is validation data that compares predicted ice growth rates for all types of ship and offshore structures against observed values. Estimation of the spray flux is a first step in predicting icing accumulation. The amount of spray water, the duration of exposure to the spray, and the frequency at which the spray is generated are all important parameters in estimating the spray flux. Most existing spray flux formulae are based on field observations from small fishing vessels. They consider meteorological and oceanographic parameters but neglect the vessel behavior. Ship heave and pitch motions, together with ship speed and heading relative to the waves, determine the frequency of spray events. Thus the existing formulae are not generally applicable to different sizes and types of vessels. The current study develops simple methods to quantify spray properties in terms that can be applied to vessels of any size or type, which consequently addresses the first knowledge gap. Formulae to estimate water content and spray duration are derived based on principles of energy conservation and dimensional analysis. To estimate spray frequency considering ship motions, a theoretical model is proposed. The model inputs are restricted to ship’s principal particulars, operating conditions, and environmental conditions. Wave-induced motions are estimated using semi-empirical analytical expressions. A novel spray threshold is developed to separate deck wetness frequency from spray frequency. Spray flux estimates are validated against full-scale field measurements available in the open literature and reasonable agreement was obtained. The complex interaction between the structure and a multi-phase fluid, including spray are not fully understood. Limitations of field measurements and model experiments encourage the use of numerical simulation to understand the formation of such spray. In this study, full-scale simulation models of wave-generated sea spray are also developed by implementing a smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method. A three-dimensional (3D) numerical wave tank equipped with a flap-type wave maker and a wave absorber is created to produce regular waves of various heights and steepness. A full-scale medium-size fishing vessel (MFV) is modeled to impact waves in head sea conditions at various forward speeds. Moving ship dynamics with three degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) in waves are resolved instead of mimicking a relative ship speed. The resultant spray water amount is measured using a numerical collection box and compared against field measurements and the theoretical model, where a reasonable agreement is found. The model is able to distinguish between green water and spray water. A multi-phase two-dimensional (2D) simulation is also performed that demonstrates the role of wind in the fragmentation of water sheets into droplets and their distributions over the deck. The simulation results indicate energy released from a surging ship significantly contributes to the generation of spray. An investigation was also performed to explore means to speed up the computationally intensive SPH simulations. A comparison with a traditional CPU (central processing unit) clusters with GPU (graphics processing unit) was performed where GPUs demonstrated faster executions. All the SPH simulations were run on GPUs

Measuring Households' Vulnerability to Idiosyncratic and Covariate Shocks – the case of Bangladesh

The paper examines the level and sources of vulnerability in rural Bangladesh using a household survey. We use a simple two-level random intercept model to estimate expected mean and variance in consumption as well as to decompose the variance into idiosyncratic and covariate components. Our results indicate that both idiosyncratic and covariate shocks have considerable impact on household's vulnerability and idiosyncratic shocks seem to have greater impact on household's consumption vulnerability than the covariate shocks. Furthermore, idiosyncratic shocks appear to have a relatively higher impact on relatively well endowed (i.e. in terms of human capital, land holdings, activity status etc.), well off households and covariate shocks seem to have a relatively higher impact on poorer, less educated, household's vulnerability. Our results also reveal that rural vulnerability in Bangladesh is mainly poverty induced rather than risk induced. Around 78 per cent all who are vulnerable is accounted for by low expected mean consumption and only 22 per cent of them are due to high consumption volatility. Overall vulnerability in rural areas is estimated to be 50 per cent. The categorization of poverty into transient and chronic poverty is even more insightful. The study finds that those without education or agricultural households are likely to be the most vulnerable. The geographical diversity of vulnerability is considerable. It is suggested that ex ante measures to prevent households from becoming poor as well as ex post measures to alleviate those already in poverty should be combined.Poverty, Vulnerability, Risks, Poverty dynamics, Bangladesh

Technical and Social Evaluation of Arsenic Mitigation in Rural Bangladesh

Technical and social performances of an arsenic-removal technology—the sono arsenic filter—in rural areas of Bangladesh were investigated. Results of arsenic field-test showed that filtered water met the Bangladesh standard (<50 µg/L) after two years of continuous use. A questionnaire was administrated among 198 sono arsenic filter-user and 230 non-user families. Seventy-two percent of filters (n=198) were working at the time of the survey. Another 28% of the filters were abandoned due to breakage. The abandonment percentage (28%) was lower than other mitigation options currently implemented in Bangladesh. Households were reluctant to repair the broken filters on their own. High cost, problems with maintenance of filters, weak sludge-disposal guidance, and slow flow rate were the other demerits of the filter. These results indicate that the implementation approaches of the sono arsenic filter suffered from lack of ownership and long-term sustainability. Continuous use of arsenic-contaminated tubewells by the non-user households demonstrated the lack of alternative water supply in the survey area. Willingness of households to pay (about 30%) and preference of household filter (50%) suggest the need to develop a low-cost household arsenic filter. Development of community-based organization would be also necessary to implement a long-term, sustainable plan for household-based technology

A fast iris recognition system through optimum feature extraction

With an increasing demand for stringent security systems, automated identification of individuals based on biometric methods has been a major focus of research and development over the last decade. Biometric recognition analyses unique physiological traits or behavioral characteristics, such as an iris, face, retina, voice, fingerprint, hand geometry, keystrokes or gait. The iris has a complex and unique structure that remains stable over a person’s lifetime, features that have led to its increasing interest in its use for biometric recognition. In this study, we proposed a technique incorporating Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based on Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) for the extraction of the optimum features of an iris and reducing the runtime needed for iris template classification. The idea of using DWT behind PCA is to reduce the resolution of the iris template. DWT converts an iris image into four frequency sub-bands. One frequency sub-band instead of four has been used for further feature extraction by using PCA. Our experimental evaluation demonstrates the efficient performance of the proposed technique

Global, regional, and national burden of colorectal cancer and its risk factors, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Funding: F Carvalho and E Fernandes acknowledge support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT), in the scope of the project UIDP/04378/2020 and UIDB/04378/2020 of the Research Unit on Applied Molecular Biosciences UCIBIO and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy i4HB; FCT/MCTES through the project UIDB/50006/2020. J Conde acknowledges the European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC-StG-2019-848325). V M Costa acknowledges the grant SFRH/BHD/110001/2015, received by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), IP, under the Norma Transitória DL57/2016/CP1334/CT0006.proofepub_ahead_of_prin

The global burden of adolescent and young adult cancer in 2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background In estimating the global burden of cancer, adolescents and young adults with cancer are often overlooked, despite being a distinct subgroup with unique epidemiology, clinical care needs, and societal impact. Comprehensive estimates of the global cancer burden in adolescents and young adults (aged 15-39 years) are lacking. To address this gap, we analysed results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019, with a focus on the outcome of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), to inform global cancer control measures in adolescents and young adults. Methods Using the GBD 2019 methodology, international mortality data were collected from vital registration systems, verbal autopsies, and population-based cancer registry inputs modelled with mortality-to-incidence ratios (MIRs). Incidence was computed with mortality estimates and corresponding MIRs. Prevalence estimates were calculated using modelled survival and multiplied by disability weights to obtain years lived with disability (YLDs). Years of life lost (YLLs) were calculated as age-specific cancer deaths multiplied by the standard life expectancy at the age of death. The main outcome was DALYs (the sum of YLLs and YLDs). Estimates were presented globally and by Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintiles (countries ranked and divided into five equal SDI groups), and all estimates were presented with corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs). For this analysis, we used the age range of 15-39 years to define adolescents and young adults. Findings There were 1.19 million (95% UI 1.11-1.28) incident cancer cases and 396 000 (370 000-425 000) deaths due to cancer among people aged 15-39 years worldwide in 2019. The highest age-standardised incidence rates occurred in high SDI (59.6 [54.5-65.7] per 100 000 person-years) and high-middle SDI countries (53.2 [48.8-57.9] per 100 000 person-years), while the highest age-standardised mortality rates were in low-middle SDI (14.2 [12.9-15.6] per 100 000 person-years) and middle SDI (13.6 [12.6-14.8] per 100 000 person-years) countries. In 2019, adolescent and young adult cancers contributed 23.5 million (21.9-25.2) DALYs to the global burden of disease, of which 2.7% (1.9-3.6) came from YLDs and 97.3% (96.4-98.1) from YLLs. Cancer was the fourth leading cause of death and tenth leading cause of DALYs in adolescents and young adults globally. Interpretation Adolescent and young adult cancers contributed substantially to the overall adolescent and young adult disease burden globally in 2019. These results provide new insights into the distribution and magnitude of the adolescent and young adult cancer burden around the world. With notable differences observed across SDI settings, these estimates can inform global and country-level cancer control efforts. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe