FINANCIAL CONTROL AND VARIABLE AMORTIZATION UNDER UNCERTAINTY: AN APPLICATION TO TEXAS RICE FARMS

Agricultural Finance,

Synthesis and Characterization of Poly(Hydroxamic Acid) and Poly(Amidoxime) Chelating Resins from Polymer Grafted Sago Starch

The graft copolymerization of methyl acrylate (MA) onto sago starch was performed by free radical initiating process in which ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN) was used as an initiator. It was found that the optimum yield of grafting, grafting efficiency and rate of graft polymerization were all dependent upon the concentration of CAN, MA, sago starch (AGU) and mineral acid (H2S04) as well as reaction temperature and period. A new equation rate of polymerization was derived from the proposed reaction mechanism. A new kinetic model for graft fraction was proposed and the validity of the model was tested by the plot of l/(l-GF)ll2 as a function of sago starch concentration and reciprocal monomer (MA) concentration. The required straight line and ordinate intercept unity was obtained and the predicted kinetic model was satisfactory supported by the experimental results until a certain limit of monomer (MA) concentration. A chelating polymeric resin containing hydroxamic acid was synthesized from poly(methyl acrylate) (PMA) grafted sago starch. The binding capacity of the poly(hydroxamic acid) resin with copper is high and other metal ions also show significant binding capacity. This chelating resin has the advantage of faster rate of equilibrium and negligible affinity for alkali metal ions. The sorption capacities of metal ions were pH dependent and its selectivity towards these metal ions is in the following order: Cu2+ > Fe3+ > Cr3+ > Ni2+ > Co2+ > Zn2+ > Cd2+ > As3+> Pb2+. These paration of Cu2+ from Co2+ and Cd2+, and Fe3+ from Co2+ and Cd2+ were carried out by column technique

Quality of Health Care in Bangladesh: A Study on Selected Upazila Health Complexes

Quality of care is an overwhelming issue in the context of health services of developing countries including Bangladesh. Performance of health care professionals and institutions determines the quality of care provided by the health facilities which in turn depends on governance as well as factors like access, safety, equity, appropriateness, timeliness, acceptability, reliability, assurance, responsiveness and empathy of care providers, health improvement and continuity of care etc. Though the governance issues affect massively the quality of care, in this article, an attempt has been taken to explore the factors which affect quality of care in health sector of Bangladesh. This paper also identifies the problems threat towards providing quality of health care in Bangladesh. Finally, this study recommends some policy options to ensure quality care in health sector and thus a healthy nation. To conduct this research and achieve the above mentioned objectives, upazila health complexes, the part and parcel of the public health sector in Bangladesh, has been selected as a case. Keywords: Quality Health Care, Public Health Sector , Upazila Health Comple

Governance and Good Governance: A Theoretical Framework

“Good governance” as an issue of development is being widely used for improvements in socio-economic outcomes and for aid effectiveness and considered as the effective tool for overcoming multidimensional challenges existed in both developed as well as developing countries of the world and it has generated increasing attention and debate both at the national and international level over the past two decades. The concept of ‘good governance’ conveys the qualitative dimension of governance that indicates effective, efficient, participative, or democratic form of government which is responsible for transparent and accountable management of human, natural, economic and financial resources for equitable and sustainable development. Addition of the adjective ‘good’ to governance has given a sense of enhancement and almost become an obsession in the recent debates on international development and public administration in developing countries. Other than the nations, international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU) and other donor agencies, have given rigorous importance to the issue of governance – particularly for aid receiving countries. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual framework on governance and good governance. This article highlights the emergence of governance as a shifting paradigm from government along with the differences between government and governance. It also focuses the meaning of governance and good governance in general and particularly the views from World Bank and UNDP as a problem solving mechanisms. For ensuring effective performance of the institutions, different international organizations like World Bank and UNDP addressed good governance indicators which are also explore in this article. Keywords: Governance, Good Governance, Theoretical Framewor

Optimization of nitrogen requirement for better growth and yield of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

A field experiment was conducted at the College of Agriculture Sciences, Agriculture Research Field of International University of Business Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT), Uttara, Dhaka, to optimize nitrogen requirements for growth and yield response of brinjal (Solanum melongena). There were six treatments of urea viz., 0, 275, 300, 325, 350 and 375 kg ha-1 and the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. The texture of the experimental soil was sandy loam and fertility status was very low. Parameters measured include: plant height, number of leaves plant-1, leaf area, number of branches plant-1, number of flower clustersplant-1, number of flowersplant-1, fruit diameter, fruits length, number of fruitsplant-1, fruit weight and yield. Present study results revealed that application of the highest dose of urea showed positive significant influence on growth and reproductive characters of brinjal (S. melongena). Similarly, yield and yield contributing characters of brinjal (S. melongena) increased with the increasing rates of urea. The highest yield (18.0 ton ha-1) was obtained from the application of 375 kg ha-1 urea, while the lowest yield (10.1 ton ha-1) was found from the control treatment. Thus, the overall study results suggested that 375 kg ha-1 urea performed the best in context Agriculture Research Field soils of IUBAT, Uttara, Dhaka. The study concluded that before final recommendation of the application dose, further study is needed in different agro-ecological zones of Bangladesh

Commercial Anti-Smishing Tools and Their Comparative Effectiveness Against Modern Threats

Smishing, also known as SMS phishing, is a type of fraudulent communication in which an attacker disguises SMS communications to deceive a target into providing their sensitive data. Smishing attacks use a variety of tactics; however, they have a similar goal of stealing money or personally identifying information (PII) from a victim. In response to these attacks, a wide variety of anti-smishing tools have been developed to block or filter these communications. Despite this, the number of phishing attacks continue to rise. In this paper, we developed a test bed for measuring the effectiveness of popular anti-smishing tools against fresh smishing attacks. To collect fresh smishing data, we introduce Smishtank.com, a collaborative online resource for reporting and collecting smishing data sets. The SMS messages were validated by a security expert and an in-depth qualitative analysis was performed on the collected messages to provide further insights. To compare tool effectiveness, we experimented with 20 smishing and benign messages across 3 key segments of the SMS messaging delivery ecosystem. Our results revealed significant room for improvement in all 3 areas against our smishing set. Most anti-phishing apps and bulk messaging services didn't filter smishing messages beyond the carrier blocking. The 2 apps that blocked the most smish also blocked 85-100\% of benign messages. Finally, while carriers did not block any benign messages, they were only able to reach a 25-35\% blocking rate for smishing messages. Our work provides insights into the performance of anti-smishing tools and the roles they play in the message blocking process. This paper would enable the research community and industry to be better informed on the current state of anti-smishing technology on the SMS platform

Are Current CCPA Compliant Banners Conveying User's Desired Opt-Out Decisions? An Empirical Study of Cookie Consent Banners

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) secures the right to Opt-Out for consumers in California. However, websites may implement complex consent mechanisms that potentially do not capture the user's true choices. We investigated the user choices in Cookie Consent Banner of US residents, the plurality of whom were from California, through an online experiment of 257 participants and compared the results with how they perceived to these Cookie Consent Banner. Our results show a contradiction between how often participants self-report their Opt-Out rates and their actual Opt-Out rate when interacting with a complex, CCPA-compliant website. This discrepancy expands the context with which modern websites may implement the CCPA without providing users sufficient information or instruction on how to successfully Opt-Out. We further elaborate on how US residents respond to and perceive the GDPR-like Opt-In model. Our results indicate that even though very few consumers actually exercised their right to Opt-Out, the majority of US consumers desire more transparent privacy policies that the current implementation of CCPA on websites lacks

Evaluation of ICT Skills & Elderly People’s Motivation in SATKA-project

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate ICT competences and elderly people’s motivation after SATKA- project’s computer training in the City of Helsinki. SATKA (Seniorit ja syrjäytyneet atk-aikaan hanke) stands for “ICT age for digitally excluded people”. The target groups were the Finnish elderly, the immigrant elderly, the pensioners and the unemployed living in Helsinki region. In this project basic IT guidance provided in different social service centers, home care centers and elderly homes without any fee. The salaried IT instructors and the volunteer IT instructors were working in this project in different locations. The lack of ICT knowledge leads to an increased risk of marginalization of the elderly people in society. The aim of the project was to support older people to utilize their own strength in old age. The strategy also was to increase social inclusion of digitally excluded people and the elderly able to live at home for as long as possible with the help of assistive equipment. ICT skills are necessary for elderly people enable to cope with the digital world. In this qualitative study the method used was face to face interviews with three elderly par-ticipants in the service centre settings regarding their training, Internet and computer us-age in daily life. All the participants were involved in SATKA-project as volunteer tutors or participants as learners. The interviews were analyzed through qualitative inductive content analysis. In this study the qualitative thematic interview was used for data collection in SATKA-project. Based on the interviews, the participants developed in communication skills e.g. by sending emails, using Skype and acquiring writing skills in MS Word. Being involved in SATKA-project and the activities of the project helped the participants to develop skills and make everyday lives easier. The participants used their ICT skills to communicate with their friends and children. The participants felt good to have ICT competences. The Internet search was interesting and necessary for further learning in old age. The Internet increased social and intergenerational communication. The elderly people need different kinds of skills even in the old age in order to active living. Learning ICT is an advantage of independent living for the elderly people. In this SATKA-project the elderly people showed a wide range of interest to acquire ICT competences and showed motivation of learning ICT. Key words: ICT skills of the elderly, motivation of the elderly, ICT for immigrants, ICT education

Determination of Gestational Age: A Perspective With the Bangladeshi Ethnicity

Determination of gestational age (GA) with precision is vital to the proper care of pregnant mothers. Our present study aimed at determining the gestational ages by the ultrasonic measurements of four standard fetal parameters namely biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), abdominal circumference (AC), and femur length (FL) specifically focusing on the Bangladeshi ethnic population. The current study is cross-sectional but data were collected in a prospective nature. There were 229 Bangladeshi women who had usual singleton fetuses with the evidence of menstrual dates by sonography before 14 weeks. Fetal anatomical structures have been scanned and measured at the time of sonographic inspection. Multiple linear regression models of GA by the date of last menstrual period (LMP) and GA by ultrasonographic measures have been fitted on four fetal parameters for our analysis. In the present analysis, we have found that all the response variables i.e. gestational age by LMP and gestational age by ultrasonography (USG) clearly depend on the fetal parameters. The best subsets regression analysis shows that BPD, AC, and FL are the best predictors of GA by LMP (adj R 2 = 96.54). In terms of Mallow’s Cp and adj R 2 , it is found that all the fetal parameters BPD, AC, HC and FL are important predictors for GA by USG. It has been observed that multiple fetal parameters measured by ultrasonography can be useful to predict gestational age during second and third trimesters. Precise estimation of gestational age by this method is helpful to reduce pregnancy-related complicacy and maternal death in the developing countries including Bangladesh