Simulating soil carbon sequestration from long term fertilizer and manure additions under continuous wheat using the DailyDayCent model

Bangabandhu Fellowship on Science and ICT project, Ministry of Science and Technology, People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Open Access via Springer Compact AgreementPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Diagnosing nutrient limitations to lentil and chickpea in acid soils of Bangladesh

Lentil and chickpea are dietary staple crops in Bangladesh but their local production has been markedly declining in recent decades, mainly due to competition with irrigated cereals. However, in northern Bangladesh, an additional problem to their cultivation is acid surface soil conditions, potentially causing deficiencies of molybdenum (Mo) and boron (B), and toxicities of aluminium (Al), manganese (Mn) or hydrogen ion (H+). In an attempt to rehabilitate lentil and chickpea in northern Bangladesh on-farm trials were conducted to determine the response of these crops to Mo, B, and lime and Rhizobium inoculation. Despite earlier reports of widespread B deficiency in the region a response to B was only found in chickpea. Responses to Mo and Rhizobium, applied through seed priming, were found. There were responses to lime even after B, Mo, and Rhizobium had been applied, suggesting Al toxicity. Recommendations for fertilizer requirement, to fit into an overall integrated crop management package for lentil and chickpea, were modified accordingly

The 2022 Conservative leadership campaign and post-racial gatekeeping

The Conservative party leadership contest that took place in the summer of 2022 was unprecedented for, amongst other things, its level of ethnic diversity. This paper argues that this doesn’t indicate a sharp, contemporary liberal turn within the party. It argues the opposite, in fact, that recent senior ethnic minority cabinet members and leadership contenders represent some of the party’s most right-wing ideologues in years. Through critical discourse analysis of narrative related to race, borders, immigration and the ‘nation’ in selected media appearances made by ethnic minority leadership contenders Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Nadhim Zahawi, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch as part of their campaigns, this paper positions these individuals – in distinct yet interrelated ways – as ethnic minority post-racial gatekeepers, continuing yet intensifying a long trend within the Conservative party of the reproduction of the racial status quo legitimised through nominal ethnic minority representation

Capital Regulation, the Cost of Financial Intermediation and Bank Profitability: Evidence from Bangladesh

In response to the recent global financial crisis, the regulatory authorities in many countries have imposed stringent capital requirements in the form of the BASEL III Accord to ensure financial stability. On the other hand, bankers have criticized new regulation on the ground that it would enhance the cost of funds for bank borrowers and deteriorate the bank profitability. In this study, we examine the impact of capital requirements on the cost of financial intermediation and bank profitability using a panel dataset of 32 Bangladeshi banks over the period from 2000 to 2015. By employing a dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator, we find robust evidence that higher bank regulatory capital ratios reduce the cost of financial intermediation and increase bank profitability. The results hold when we use equity to total assets ratio as an alternative measure of bank capital. We also observe that switching from BASEL I to BASEL II has no measurable impact on the cost of financial intermediation and bank profitability in Bangladesh. In the empirical analysis, we further observe that higher bank management and cost efficiencies are associated with the lower cost of financial intermediation and higher bank profitability. These results have important implications for bank regulators, academicians, and bankers

Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation for Extremely Low Mass Galaxies

We study Tully-Fisher relations for a sample that combines extremely faint (M_B > -14.0) galaxies along with bright (i.e. L_*) galaxies. Accurate (~ 10%) distances, I band photometry, and B-V colors are known for the majority of the galaxies in our sample. The faint galaxies are drawn from the Faint Irregular Galaxy GMRT survey (FIGGS), and we have HI rotation velocities derived from aperture synthesis observations for all of them. For the faint galaxies, we find that even though the median HI and stellar masses are comparable, the HI mass correlates significantly better with the circular velocity indicators than the stellar mass. We also find that W$_{20}$ correlates better with mass than the rotation velocity, although the difference is not statistically significant. The faint galaxies lie systematically below the I band TF relation defined by bright galaxies, and also show significantly more intrinsic scatter. This implies that the integrated star formation in these galaxies has been both less efficient and also less regulated than in large galaxies. We find that while the faint end deviation is greatly reduced in Baryonic Tully-Fisher (BTF) relations, the existence of a break at the faint end of the BTF is subject to systematics such as the assumed stellar mass to light ratio. If we assume that there is an intrinsic BTF and try to determine the baryonic mass by searching for prescriptions that lead to the tightest BTF, we find that scaling the HI mass leads to a much more significant tightening than scaling the stellar mass to light ratio. The most significant tightening that we find however, is if we scale the entire baryonic mass of the faint (but not the bright) galaxies. Such a scenario would be consistent with models where dwarf (but not large) galaxies have a large fraction of dark or ``missing'' baryons (Slightly abridged)Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Effectiveness of commercial versus homemade sports drinks on fluid balance and exercise capacity during high-intensity intermittent exercise

Commercial sports drinks are used widely by athletes involved in high-intensity intermittent (HII) exercise. However, little has been reported on their relative effectiveness compared to simple homemade drink formulations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of different sports drink formulations (commercial v homemade), water and no drink on fluid balance and exercise capacity during HII exercise. Twelve trained men (age: 27 ± 2.1 y) performed a 90-min HII running protocol designed to simulate activity experienced during a football match. The protocol was arranged in six 15-min stages where running speeds ranged between 55% and 120% of VO2max. The HII protocol included half-time and a run to fatigue post 90 min. Using a single-blind, randomized, cross-over design, participants ingested a preload of 5 mlkg-1 10 min before HII exercise and 3 mlkg-1 every 15 min of either Isostar® (ISO), a homemade sports drink (CHO), placebo (P) or no drink (ND). Blood lactate (Hla), blood glucose (Bgluc), heart rate (HR) and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured before, during (every 15 min) and after the 90-min HII protocol. Changes in plasma volume were measured at half-time and post 90 min. Sweat rate and fluid balance were calculated post each trial. Time to fatigue (TTF) was recorded at exhaustion. In the ND trial, TTF decreased by approximately 17%, 28% and 43% compared to P, CHO and ISO, respectively (p0.05). No differences were noted in HLa, RPE, PV or SR between the trials (p>0.05) but there were significant effects of time (p<0.05). Bgluc peaked at 30 minutes in ISO and CHO, but dropped by ~27% in ISO and by ~30% in CHO after half time. Absence of fluid ingestion surprisingly had no significant effect on altering plasma volume or decreasing sweat rate despite causing noticeable decreases in exercise capacity. The homemade drink improved exercise capacity in a similar manner to that of the commercial drink, but neither sports drink achieved superior hydration compared to water. Ingestion of exogenous carbohydrate through sports drink consumption caused an exercise-induced glycemic response when exercise was restarted after half-time. This decline in blood glucose after half-time appears to be marginally attenuated in P trial. A possible suggestion for team sports could be to drink water rather than sports drink prior to half-time period

Study on existing nutritional condition of peri-urban dairies at Chittagong, Bangladesh

The study was aimed to observe the nutritive value of concentrate used in different dairy farms at peri-urban areas of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Ten (10) different concentrate feeds were randomly selected from ten different farms which analyzed for moisture, dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude fiber (CF), nitrogen free extracts (NFE), ether extracts (EE), total ash (TA) and acid insoluble ash (AIA) and requirements of concentrate for unit production of milk was calculated. It was found that the nutritive value of individual feed concentrate of each farm varied significantly. The observed proportion of using feed ingredients was also significantly different among the farms. Finally, it may be summarized that the concentrate mixture used by the different farmers of peri-urban areas of Chittagong was different in regards to chemical composition, ingredients and amount required for milk production. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/ijarit.v3i2.17844 Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. &amp; Tech. 3 (2): 49-53, December, 201

Efficient Data Gathering and Aggregation for Multiple Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks

Data aggregation in wireless sensor networks refers to acquiring the sensed data from the sensors to the gateway node. It reduces the amount of power consumed during data transmission between the sensor nodes. Generally homomorphic encryptions have been applied to conceal communication during aggregation. Since enciphered data can be aggregated algebraically without decryption. Here adversaries are able to forge aggregated results by compromising them. However, these schemes are not satisfying multi-application environments, provide insecure transmission and do not provide secure counting for unauthorized aggregation attacks. In this paper, we propose a new concealed data aggregation scheme extended from homomorphic privacy encryption system. The proposed scheme designed for a multi-application environment, mitigates the impact of compromising attacks in single application environments and also it can avoid the damage from unauthorized aggregations by the privacy homomorphic encryption scheme.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Development of two high yielding mutant varieties of mustard [Brassica juncea (L.) Czern.] through gamma rays irradiation

Seeds of the well-adapted and popular mustard variety BARIsarisha-11 were irradiated with gamma ray using 60Co gamma cells. Irradiated seeds were grown as M1 during 2004-05. Selection was made from M2 generation during 2005-06. Desirable mutants were confirmed in M4 generation during 2007-08 and ten true breeding mutants having higher seed yield per plant with desirable morphological characters and yield attributes were selected. Selected mutants were evaluated along with the mother variety BARIsarisha-11 to select the most desirable ones considering higher seed yield and improved yield attributes under different replicated yield trials during 2008-09 to 2010-11. Results showed that two mutants, MM-10-04 and MM-08-04 selected from 700 Gy produced higher seed yield than BARIsarisha-11 in most of the trials conducted in 13 locations of Bangladesh. Mean of three years trial showed that seed yield of MM-10-04 and MM-08-04 was 2043 and 1893 kg ha-1, respectively, which was 23% and 14% higher than BARIsarisha-11 (parental plant). Mutants MM-10-04 and MM-08-04 also had the higher number of siliquae plant-1, 1000-seed weight and oil content than BARIsarisha-11. These two mutants also showed tolerance against Alternaria blight disease and lower aphid infestation. Results of the yield trials as well as screening against Alternaria blight disease and aphid carried out across the country indicated that MM-10-04 and MM-08-04 were suitable for widespread cultivation. Consequently, the National Seed Board of Bangladesh registered MM-10-04 and MM-08-04 in 2011 as two high yielding mustard varieties, Binasarisha-7 and Binasarisha-8, respectively for commercial cultivation