Efficient Utilization of Urban Fringe Area for Smart Urban Growth with Proposed Compact Township Design: A Case Study in Pabna District, Bangladesh

In last few decades Bangladesh has been facing major urbanization throughout different cities. Also, the urban growth of this cities will not follow any planning standard and increases haphazardly which causes serious urban sprawl. The Compact Township (CT) Design is considered one of the best planning strategies that can control the haphazard growth of urban sprawl and develop more sustainable cities which will benefit Bangladesh in the environmental, social and economic dimensions. Pabna district, Bangladesh faces major urbanization problem in last few decades because of its large amount of existing resources and opportunities. Ishwardi Thana in Pabna district has been selected as the study area for CT design. The aim of this study is to estimate the decadal urban growth of study area using Landsat images from 1996-2016 as well as Proposed an effective CT Design to control haphazard urban growth in the fringe area. From the image analysis using Arc GIS 10.4 and Erdas Imagine software, it’s clearly noticeable that Ishwardi Thana has been facing more urban growth from any other Thana in Pabna District. Also, the study area consists of a significant amount of urban fringe area which is suitable for the development of CT. The proposed CT design in “Majdia site” situated in selected study area where Zoning techniques have been used in 245 acres area. To make the design production and transport-oriented the location is divided into high-class residential zone, middle-class residential zone, lower class residential zone and Mix use zone, etc. According to the design and estimation, the 245 acres area can provide accommodations about 25200 population with easy accessibility of work and basic amenities. Considering all the condition, planning strategies of the CT is meant to guarantee a good accessibility and integrate collective transports, services and attractive public spaces to avoid the increase of the urban sprawl

Clément Hébert (a), Davy Carole (c), Franck Omnes (a), Etienne Gheeraert (a)

International audienceNanopores in insulating solid state membranes have recently emerged as potential candidates for sorting, probing and manipulating biopolymers, such as DNA, RNA and proteins in their native environment. Here a simple, fast and cost-effective etching technique to create nanopores in diamond membrane by self-assembled Ni nanoparticles is proposed. In this process, a diamond film is annealed with thin Ni layers at 800-850 degrees C in hydrogen atmosphere. Carbon from the diamond-metal interface is removed as methane by the help of Ni nanoparticles as catalyst and consequently, the nanoparticles enter the crystal volume. In order to optimize the etching process and understand the mechanism the annealed polycrystalline and nanocrystalline diamond films were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and the gas composition during the process was investigated by quadrupole mass spectrometer. With this technique, nanopores with lateral size in the range of 15-225 nm and as deep as about 550 nm in diamond membrane were produced without any need for lithography process. A model for etching diamond with Ni explaining the mechanism is discussed

Cultural Identity and Social and Emotional Wellbeing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children

Connection with Country, community, and culture lies at the heart of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health and wellbeing. Although there is some evidence on the role of cultural identity on the mental health of Indigenous adults, this relationship is relatively unexplored in the context of Indigenous Australian children. Robust empirical evidence on the role of cultural identity for social and emotional wellbeing is necessary to design and develop effective interventions and approaches for improving the mental health outcomes for Indigenous Australian children. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC), we explore social and emotional wellbeing in Indigenous Australian children and assesses whether cultural identity protects against social-emotional problems in Indigenous children. The results show that Indigenous children with strong cultural identity and knowledge are less likely to experience social and emotional problems than their counterparts. Our work provides further evidence to support the change from a deficit narrative to a strengths-based discourse for improved health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australian children

Clonal Propagation of Flacourtia indica for Ensuring Quality Planting Materials and Sustainable Supply of Edible Fruits

The present study was carried out at the Agriculture research field, Patuakhali Science And Technology University(PSTU), Patuakhali, from March, 2015 to April, 2016 to explore the domestication potential and to evaluate the rooting performance of Flacourtia indica (katabohori), a wild fruit species in Bangladesh, through clonal propagation by stem cutting under 3 different doses of rooting hormone IBA (Indole Buetaric Acid) and planted in the perforated plastic tray filled with coarse sand and gravel placed in the non-mist propagator. The experiment was laid out following a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with 4 treatments and 4 replications (blocks). The treatments were T0= control, T1 = 0.2% IBA, T2 = 0.4% IBA, T3 = 0.8% IBA. The rooting ability of cuttings was significantly influenced by the application of IBA. The results showed that the highest rooting percentage (100) and maximum root number (8) of Flacourtia indica stem cuttings were obtained from the cuttings treated with 0.4% IBA followed by 0.2% IBA where as the longest root length (8.998 cm) was recorded with 0.2% IBA followed by 0.4% IBA. Survival percentage of the cutlings (the rooted cuttings) after 3 months of transferring them into poly bags was also significantly enhanced by exogenous rooting hormone (IBA) application. The highest survival percentage (84.5 %) was for the cuttings treated with 0.4% IBA followed by 0.2% IBA (71%). The similar trend was also observed for average cutling height and number of leaf. Findings of the present study reveal that the plant species is highly amenable for clonal propagation by stem cuttings using low-cost non-mist propagator. Considering both rooting percentage and root number, 0.4% IBA treatment of stem cuttings may be recommended for mass production of quality planting stocks for the domestication of the species in homestead agroforestry or in fruit orchards to provide edible fruit to rural poor people of natural disaster vulnerable Bangladesh

bbOCR: An Open-source Multi-domain OCR Pipeline for Bengali Documents

Despite the existence of numerous Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools, the lack of comprehensive open-source systems hampers the progress of document digitization in various low-resource languages, including Bengali. Low-resource languages, especially those with an alphasyllabary writing system, suffer from the lack of large-scale datasets for various document OCR components such as word-level OCR, document layout extraction, and distortion correction; which are available as individual modules in high-resource languages. In this paper, we introduce Bengali$.$AI-BRACU-OCR (bbOCR): an open-source scalable document OCR system that can reconstruct Bengali documents into a structured searchable digitized format that leverages a novel Bengali text recognition model and two novel synthetic datasets. We present extensive component-level and system-level evaluation: both use a novel diversified evaluation dataset and comprehensive evaluation metrics. Our extensive evaluation suggests that our proposed solution is preferable over the current state-of-the-art Bengali OCR systems. The source codes and datasets are available here: https://bengaliai.github.io/bbocr

Identification of novel and safe fungicidal molecules against fusarium oxysporum from plant essential oils: in vitro and computational approaches.

Phytopathogenic fungi are serious threats in the agriculture sector especially in fruit and vegetable production. The use of plant essential oil as antifungal agents has been in practice from many years. Plant essential oils (PEOs) of Cuminum cyminum, Trachyspermum ammi, Azadirachta indica, Syzygium aromaticum, Moringa oleifera, Mentha spicata, Eucalyptus grandis, Allium sativum, and Citrus sinensis were tested against Fusarium oxysporum. Three phase trials consist of lab testing (MIC and MFC), field testing (seed treatment and foliar spray), and computer-aided fungicide design (CAFD). Two concentrations (25 and 50 μl/ml) have been used to asses MIC while MFC was assessed at four concentrations (25, 50, 75, and 100 μl/ml). C. sinensis showed the largest inhibition zone (47.5 and 46.3 m2) for both concentrations. The lowest disease incidence and disease severity were recorded in treatments with C. sinensis PEO. Citrus sinensis that qualified in laboratory and field trials was selected for CAFD. The chemical compounds of C. sinensis PEO were docked with polyketide synthase beta-ketoacyl synthase domain of F. oxysporum by AutoDock Vina. The best docked complex was formed by nootkatone with -6.0 kcal/mol binding affinity. Pharmacophore of the top seven C. sinensis PEO compounds was used for merged pharmacophore generation. The best pharmacophore model with 0.8492 score was screened against the CMNP database. Top hit compounds from screening were selected and docked with polyketide synthase beta-ketoacyl synthase domain. Four compounds with the highest binding affinity and hydrogen bonding were selected for confirmation of lead molecule by doing MD simulation. The polyketide synthase-CMNPD24498 showed the highest stability throughout 80 ns run of MD simulation. CMNPD24498 (FW054-1) from Verrucosispora was selected as the lead compound against F. oxysporum

Hydrochemical investigations of coastal aquifers and saltwater intrusion in severely affected areas of Satkhira and Bagerhat districts, Bangladesh Bangladesh

In this study, saltwater intrusion and hydrochemical process in the coastal aquifer system of Satkhira and Bagerhat districts, Bangladesh, have been investigated. The studied two aquifer systems are mostly affected by saltwater. Overall processes have been applied on 120 samples (per study area 60) to specify the mixing condition of saltwater types in both study areas. This research was run based on the seawater mixing index (SMI), GIS technique of spatial distribution modeling, statistical process (principal component analysis, correlation matrix analysis), geochemical bivariate plot, and ionic proportions. According to the analytical results, the Bagerhat district has greater levels of Cl, Na, total dissolved solids (TDS), and electrical conductivity (EC) than the Satkhira district. Hydrochemical analysis has shown that most samples discovered in the Satkhira district have Na–Cl facies, although this percentage is lower than Bagerhat. The spatial distribution of SMI on the Satkhira district shows 29%, 31%, 23%, and 17%, whereas in the Bagerhat district, it shows 16%, 23%, 26%, and 35% of freshwater, brackish water, moderately saltwater, and high saltwater or mixing of saltwater, respectively. Therefore, the overall intrusion process has been affected by long-term hydrochemical processes, such as water–rock exchange, sediment reduction, anthropogenesis, and ion interaction

Global, regional, and national burden of chronic kidney disease, 1990–2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Health system planning requires careful assessment of chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemiology, but data for morbidity and mortality of this disease are scarce or non-existent in many countries. We estimated the global, regional, and national burden of CKD, as well as the burden of cardiovascular disease and gout attributable to impaired kidney function, for the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017. We use the term CKD to refer to the morbidity and mortality that can be directly attributed to all stages of CKD, and we use the term impaired kidney function to refer to the additional risk of CKD from cardiovascular disease and gout. Methods The main data sources we used were published literature, vital registration systems, end-stage kidney disease registries, and household surveys. Estimates of CKD burden were produced using a Cause of Death Ensemble model and a Bayesian meta-regression analytical tool, and included incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, mortality, years of life lost, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). A comparative risk assessment approach was used to estimate the proportion of cardiovascular diseases and gout burden attributable to impaired kidney function. Findings Globally, in 2017, 1·2 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1·2 to 1·3) people died from CKD. The global all-age mortality rate from CKD increased 41·5% (95% UI 35·2 to 46·5) between 1990 and 2017, although there was no significant change in the age-standardised mortality rate (2·8%, −1·5 to 6·3). In 2017, 697·5 million (95% UI 649·2 to 752·0) cases of all-stage CKD were recorded, for a global prevalence of 9·1% (8·5 to 9·8). The global all-age prevalence of CKD increased 29·3% (95% UI 26·4 to 32·6) since 1990, whereas the age-standardised prevalence remained stable (1·2%, −1·1 to 3·5). CKD resulted in 35·8 million (95% UI 33·7 to 38·0) DALYs in 2017, with diabetic nephropathy accounting for almost a third of DALYs. Most of the burden of CKD was concentrated in the three lowest quintiles of Socio-demographic Index (SDI). In several regions, particularly Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, the burden of CKD was much higher than expected for the level of development, whereas the disease burden in western, eastern, and central sub-Saharan Africa, east Asia, south Asia, central and eastern Europe, Australasia, and western Europe was lower than expected. 1·4 million (95% UI 1·2 to 1·6) cardiovascular disease-related deaths and 25·3 million (22·2 to 28·9) cardiovascular disease DALYs were attributable to impaired kidney function. Interpretation Kidney disease has a major effect on global health, both as a direct cause of global morbidity and mortality and as an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. CKD is largely preventable and treatable and deserves greater attention in global health policy decision making, particularly in locations with low and middle SDI

Mapping disparities in education across low- and middle-income countries

Analyses of the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017 reveal inequalities across countries as well as within populations. Educational attainment is an important social determinant of maternal, newborn, and child health(1-3). As a tool for promoting gender equity, it has gained increasing traction in popular media, international aid strategies, and global agenda-setting(4-6). The global health agenda is increasingly focused on evidence of precision public health, which illustrates the subnational distribution of disease and illness(7,8); however, an agenda focused on future equity must integrate comparable evidence on the distribution of social determinants of health(9-11). Here we expand on the available precision SDG evidence by estimating the subnational distribution of educational attainment, including the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling, across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017. Previous analyses have focused on geographical disparities in average attainment across Africa or for specific countries, but-to our knowledge-no analysis has examined the subnational proportions of individuals who completed specific levels of education across all low- and middle-income countries(12-14). By geolocating subnational data for more than 184 million person-years across 528 data sources, we precisely identify inequalities across geography as well as within populations.Peer reviewe

Diabetes mortality and trends before 25 years of age: an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background Diabetes, particularly type 1 diabetes, at younger ages can be a largely preventable cause of death with the correct health care and services. We aimed to evaluate diabetes mortality and trends at ages younger than 25 years globally using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019. Methods We used estimates of GBD 2019 to calculate international diabetes mortality at ages younger than 25 years in 1990 and 2019. Data sources for causes of death were obtained from vital registration systems, verbal autopsies, and other surveillance systems for 1990–2019. We estimated death rates for each location using the GBD Cause of Death Ensemble model. We analysed the association of age-standardised death rates per 100 000 population with the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and a measure of universal health coverage (UHC) and described the variability within SDI quintiles. We present estimates with their 95% uncertainty intervals. Findings In 2019, 16 300 (95% uncertainty interval 14 200 to 18 900) global deaths due to diabetes (type 1 and 2 combined) occurred in people younger than 25 years and 73·7% (68·3 to 77·4) were classified as due to type 1 diabetes. The age-standardised death rate was 0·50 (0·44 to 0·58) per 100 000 population, and 15 900 (97·5%) of these deaths occurred in low to high-middle SDI countries. The rate was 0·13 (0·12 to 0·14) per 100 000 population in the high SDI quintile, 0·60 (0·51 to 0·70) per 100 000 population in the low-middle SDI quintile, and 0·71 (0·60 to 0·86) per 100 000 population in the low SDI quintile. Within SDI quintiles, we observed large variability in rates across countries, in part explained by the extent of UHC (r2=0·62). From 1990 to 2019, age-standardised death rates decreased globally by 17·0% (−28·4 to −2·9) for all diabetes, and by 21·0% (–33·0 to −5·9) when considering only type 1 diabetes. However, the low SDI quintile had the lowest decline for both all diabetes (−13·6% [–28·4 to 3·4]) and for type 1 diabetes (−13·6% [–29·3 to 8·9]). Interpretation Decreasing diabetes mortality at ages younger than 25 years remains an important challenge, especially in low and low-middle SDI countries. Inadequate diagnosis and treatment of diabetes is likely to be major contributor to these early deaths, highlighting the urgent need to provide better access to insulin and basic diabetes education and care. This mortality metric, derived from readily available and frequently updated GBD data, can help to monitor preventable diabetes-related deaths over time globally, aligned with the UN's Sustainable Development Targets, and serve as an indicator of the adequacy of basic diabetes care for type 1 and type 2 diabetes across nations.publishedVersio