Effect of Student Loans on Income Inequality in the United States

Student loan is a pervasive problem in the United States. Historically, higher education has been a major driver of intergenerational mobility in the United States. The current student loan has increased substantially over the years, surpassing credit card and auto loans. Using panel data from all States, this paper attempts to empirically predict if income inequality is affected by student loans. Statistical analysis points towards student loan exacerbating income inequality. Other variables such as private college tuition and household poverty have a highly significant negative effect on income inequality. The overall results suggest that increased access to higher education at the expense of higher student loans may be countervailing to the income distribution dynamics of the United States

Federalism and the Arab League: A theoretical synergy

Abstract. The paper is a theoretical analogy of the Arab league as a regional organization. The paper also discusses the objectives, strengths and weaknesses of the league. By adopting descriptive-historical research from library instrument, findings show that, there is no doubt that the league had recorded some appreciable level of achievements since its inception and there have equally been some challenges along the line. The paper concludes that, the Arab league must find a way to reduce the perpetual tension and violence in Palestine by working towards enthroning a peaceful relationship with Israel while retaining their cultural identity. The paper also recommends that, the Arab league should strengthen their relationship with the non-Arab Nations especially in the face of globalization to reap the benefits therein involved as a league. Arab league must ensure that Arab states stop waging needless wars between and among themselves. The Syria and Yemeni crises among others is a disgrace to the Arab world.Keywords: Arab league, Theoretical, Synergy, Federalism, Integration.JEL. A10, F15

Interpretable Multi Labeled Bengali Toxic Comments Classification using Deep Learning

This paper presents a deep learning-based pipeline for categorizing Bengali toxic comments, in which at first a binary classification model is used to determine whether a comment is toxic or not, and then a multi-label classifier is employed to determine which toxicity type the comment belongs to. For this purpose, we have prepared a manually labeled dataset consisting of 16,073 instances among which 8,488 are Toxic and any toxic comment may correspond to one or more of the six toxic categories - vulgar, hate, religious, threat, troll, and insult simultaneously. Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) with BERT Embedding achieved 89.42% accuracy for the binary classification task while as a multi-label classifier, a combination of Convolutional Neural Network and Bi-directional Long Short Term Memory (CNN-BiLSTM) with attention mechanism achieved 78.92% accuracy and 0.86 as weighted F1-score. To explain the predictions and interpret the word feature importance during classification by the proposed models, we utilized Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) framework. We have made our dataset public and can be accessed at - https://github.com/deepu099cse/Multi-Labeled-Bengali-Toxic-Comments-Classificatio

Determinants of male participation in reproductive healthcare services: a cross-sectional study

Background The role of male’s participation in reproductive healthcare is now well-recognized. The present study investigated the role of men in some selected reproductive health issues, characterizing their involvement, including factors influencing their participation in reproductive healthcare services. Methods This study was conducted in the working areas of urban and rural implemented by NGOs. The sample-size was determined scientifically. The systematic sampling procedure was used for selecting the sample. The study included 615 men aged 25-45 years. Bivariate analysis was performed between male’s involvement as the dependent variable with several independent variables. Logistic regression analysis was applied to assess the effects of risk factors on the participation of men in reproductive health care services. Results The mean age of the respondents was little over 34 years while their mean years of schooling was 3.7, and their mean monthly income was about Tk 3,400 (US$ 1 = Tk 70) at the time of the study. Rickshaw-pulling and driving was the main occupation of the respondents from the urban while farming were main occupation in the rural area respectively. About two-thirds of the respondents discussed reproductive health issues with their wives and accompanied them to healthcare facilities. The current contraceptive-use rate was 63% among the men who attended the evening clinics. Results of bivariate analysis showed a significant association with education, occupation, income, access to media, and number of living children. Results of logistic regression analysis showed that secondary to higher education level, number of living children, paid employment status, long marital duration, and access to media were important correlates of males’ involvement in reproductive healthcare services. Conclusions The results imply that a greater integration of reproductive healthcare matters with the Millennium Development Goals and increasing perception of men through enrollment in various components of reproductive activities will produce synergistic effects

Optical and morphological characterization of BaSe thin films synthesized via chemical bath deposition

Barium selinide (BaSe) thin films were deposited onto glass substrate via chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The effect of deposition time on the thin film formation mechanism has been studied to understand the optimum conditions for synthesis process. The phase identification and surface morphology of thin coated films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively while the optical characterizations were conducted by means of ultraviolet visible (UV- Vis) spectroscopy. XRD study confirms the polycrystalline hexagonal structure of the thin films. The XRD peaks at 2θ =23.84° and 2θ = 23.86o showed the preferential orientation along the (021) and (201) plane with deposition time 20 hours and 22 hours respectively, whereas the major peak at (111) was obtained with a deposition time of 24 hours. With the increase in deposition time up to 24 hours, the film gradually grew thicker along with the fine increase in the grain size. The direct optical band gap of the films was measured to be varied from 1.33 to 3.37 eV

Reactivity of [Re\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e(CO)\u3csub\u3e8\u3c/sub\u3e(MeCN)\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e] with Thiazoles: Hydrido Bridged Dirhenium Compounds Bearing Thiazoles in Different Coordination Modes

Reactions of the labile compound [Re2(CO)8(MeCN)2] with thiazole and 4-methylthiazole in refluxing benzene afforded the new compounds [Re2(CO)7{μ-2,3-η2-C3H(R)NS}{η1-NC3H2(4-R)S}(μ-H)] (1, R = H; 2, R = CH3), [Re2(CO)6{μ-2,3-η2-C3H(R)NS}{η1-NC3H2(4-R)S}2(μ-H)] (3, R = H; 4, R = CH3) and fac-[Re(CO)3(Cl){η1-NC3H2(4-R)S}2] (5, R = H; 6, R = CH3). Compounds 1 and 2 contain two rhenium atoms, one bridging thiazolide ligand, coordinated through the C(2) and N atoms and a η1-thiazole ligand coordinated through the nitrogen atom to the same Re as the thiazolide nitrogen. Compounds 3 and 4 contain a Re2(CO)6 group with one bridging thiazolide ligand coordinated through the C(2) and N atoms and two N-coordinated η1-thiazole ligands, each coordinated to one Re atom. A hydride ligand, formed by oxidative-addition of C(2)–H bond of the ligand, bridges Re–Re bond opposite the thiazolide ligand in compounds 1–4. Compound 5 contains a single rhenium atom with three carbonyl ligands, two N-coordinated η1-thiazole ligands and a terminal Cl ligand. Treatment of both 1 and 2 with 5 equiv. of thiazole and 4-methylthiazole in the presence of Me3NO in refluxing benzene afforded 3 and 4, respectively. Further activation of the coordinated η1-thiazole ligands in 1–4 is, however, unsuccessful and results only nonspecific decomposition. The single-crystal XRD structures of 1–5 are reported

Antiproliferative potential of Sargassum binderi Sonder ex J. Agardh mediated biogenic silver/silver chloride nanoparticles on EAC, MCF-7 and HCT116 cells

Biosynthesis of Ag/AgCl-NPs from Sargassum binderi extract was confirmed by colour changes and a sharp peak at 416 nm detected by UV-visible spectrophotometer. It was characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrophotometer, X-ray powder Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Mild toxicity of the synthesized Ag/AgCl-NPs was determined by the brine shrimp nauplii cytotoxicity assay. IC50 values of 19.73, 25.56, and 14.0

Nutrition: Basis for Healthy Children and Mothers in Bangladesh

Recent data from the World Health Organization showed that about 60% of all deaths, occurring among children aged less than five years (under-five children) in developing countries, could be attributed to malnutrition. It has been estimated that nearly 50.6 million under-five children are malnourished, and almost 90% of these children are from developing countries. Bangladesh is one of the countries with the highest rate of malnutrition. The recent baseline survey by the National Nutrition Programme (NNP) showed high rates of stunting, underweight, and wasting. However, data from the nutrition surveillance at the ICDDR, B hospital showed that the proportion of children with stunting, underweight, and wasting has actually reduced during 1984–2005. Inappropriate infant and young child-feeding practices (breastfeeding and complementary feeding) have been identified as a major cause of malnutrition. In Bangladesh, although the median duration of breastfeeding is about 30 months, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding until the first six months of life is low, and practice of appropriate complementary feeding is not satisfactory. Different surveys done by the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and Bangladesh Breastfeeding Foundation (BBF) showed a rate of exclusive breastfeeding to be around 32-52%, which have actually remained same or declined over time. The NNP baseline survey using a strict definition of exclusive breastfeeding showed a rate of exclusive breastfeeding (12.8%) until six months of age. Another study from the Abhoynagar field site of ICDDR, B reported the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding to be 15% only. Considerable efforts have been made to improve the rates of exclusive breastfeeding. Nationally, initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth, feeding colostrum, and exclusive breastfeeding have been promoted through the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) implemented and supported by BBF and UNICEF respectively. Since most (87-91%) deliveries take place in home, the BFHI has a limited impact on the breastfeeding practices. Results of a few studies done at ICDDR, B and elsewhere in developing countries showed that the breastfeeding peer-counselling method could substantially increase the rates of exclusive breastfeeding. Results of a study in urban Dhaka showed that the rate of exclusive breastfeeding was 70% among mothers who were counselled compared to only 6% who were not counselled. Results of another study in rural Bangladesh showed that peer-counselling given either individually or in a group improved the rate of exclusive breastfeeding from 89% to 81% compared to those mothers who received regular health messages only. This implies that scaling up peer-counselling methods and incorporation of breastfeeding counselling in the existing maternal and child heath programme is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of improving child survival. The recent data showed that the prevalence of starting complementary food among infants aged 6-9 months had increased substantially with 76% in the current dataset. However, the adequacy, frequency, and energy density of the complementary food are in question. Remarkable advances have been made in the hospital management of severely-malnourished children. The protocolized management of severe protein-energy malnutrition at the Dhaka hospital of ICDDR, B has reduced the rate of hospital mortality by 50%. A recent study at ICDDR, B has also documented that home-based management of severe protein-energy malnutrition without follow-up was comparable with a hospital-based protocolized management. Although the community nutrition centres of the NNP have been providing food supplementation and performing growth monitoring of children with protein-energy malnutrition, the referral system and management of complicated severely-malnourished children are still not in place

Dynamic reciprocal authentication protocol for mobile cloud computing

A combination of mobile and cloud computing delivers many advantages such as mobility, resources, and accessibility through seamless data transmission via the Internet anywhere at any time. However, data transmission through vulnerable channels poses security threats such as man-in-the-middle, playback, impersonation, and asynchronization attacks. To address these threats, we define an explicit security model that can precisely measure the practical capabilities of an adversary. A systematic methodology consisting of 16 evaluation criteria is used for comparative evaluation, thereby leading other approaches to be evaluated through a common scale. Finally, we propose a dynamic reciprocal authentication protocol to secure data transmission in mobile cloud computing (MCC). In particular, our proposed protocol develops a secure reciprocal authentication method, which is free of Diffie–Hellman limitations, and has immunity against basic or sophisticated known attacks. The protocol utilizes multifactor authentication of usernames, passwords, and a one-time password (OTP). The OTP is automatically generated and regularly updated for every connection. The proposed protocol is implemented and tested using Java to demonstrate its efficiency in authenticating communications and securing data transmitted in the MCC environment. Results of the evaluation process indicate that compared with the existing works, the proposed protocol possesses obvious capabilities in security and in communication and computation costs