Benefit-Cost Assessment of Different Homestead Vegetable Gardening on Improving Household Food and Nutrition Security in Rural Bangladesh

Homestead vegetable gardening can play a significant role in improving food security for the resource poor rural households in developing country like Bangladesh. The present study quantifies costs/benefits of traditional and developed homestead vegetable production systems, and analyzes the underlying factors contributing to food security. The result suggests that developed gardening has better performances in terms of calorie intake and economic performances over traditional but the optimal calorie intake with least-cost technology could be a feasible livelihood strategy for resource poor people. The result also suggests that education, sex, and garden area have significant effect on food security. The occupation and family size are also positively associated with food security.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Security and Poverty,

Flexural and Flammability Characteristics of Woven Jute Fabric Reinforced Vinyl Ester Treated with Ammonium Polyphosphate

The work aims to determine the optimum fire-retardant treatment for the jute/vinyl ester composites on the composites' flexural and flammability characteristics. Ammonium polyphosphate deposition in composite samples increased the thickness and weight, which led to an increase in their sample densities. The deposition of 10% ammonium polyphosphate (APP) resulted in the highest flexural strength. However, APP significantly increased the flexural modulus of all samples to the untreated sample. In terms of flammability properties, the deposition of APP increased composites' performance against fire. Incorporating 10% of APP provides good flexural and fire-retardancy properties for the woven jute/vinyl ester composite

Castlemans Disease - A Rare Cause of Pyrexia of Unknown Origin (PUO): Case Report

Pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) is a common problem in medical practice. Patients suffer from fever for long period but initial relevant investigations remain normal. Infection is the most common cause of PUO in developing countries. Other causes are lymphoma, myeloma, connective tissue diseases (CTD), sarcoidosis and malignancy etc. In our country, where no cause can be identified, a usual practice is to start anti-tubercular drugs. We report a patient who was suffering from prolonged fever and usual investigations were within normal limit except high erythrocyte sedimentation rate. In spite of having 6 months anti-tubercular drugs, the patient did not respond. Thorough examination revealed a paraaortic mass which was reconfirmed by ultrasound of abdomen. Laparotomy revealed a mesenteric lymph node that was removed. Histopathologically it was diagnosed as a case of CASTLEMAN'S DISEASE which is a rare cause of PUO. On removal of the lymph node, the patient improved dramatically. Key words: Castleman's disease; PUO DOI: 10.3329/bsmmuj.v2i2.4764 BSMMU J 2009; 2(2): 85-8

Analyzing the use and benefits of green communication in higher educational institutes

In India, higher education institutions (HEIs) are realizing the value of green interaction, which includes using social media (S.M.) in an environmentally responsible manner. However, there needs to be more consistency on the adoption's present status, the particular tactics used, and the advantages that follow. The current research investigates the various aspects of sustainable communication and its benefits in HEIs throughout India. Through a questionnaire approach, the research enrolled learners across India. The study model's conceptual structure was validated, and its assumptions were proven through the implementation of a quantitative survey. The number of accepted samples was calculated using a conceptual model, and data analysis was performed using the structural equation model (SEM). There were 500 respondents in the study, ranging in age and academic degree and from different institutions of higher learning. The age range of 280 women and 220 men was 80% between 19 and 28. Respondents employed prominent S.M. sites (Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook) with purpose and had robust computer abilities. The results demonstrated that inspiration for employing S.M., S.M. characteristics, and information exchange had a favorable impact on students' opinions of user-friendliness and the benefits of digital learning platforms, raising their adoption of them. The research strategy in this investigation delivers suggestions for additional exploration into how HEIs in India may maximize the advantages and utilization of digital learning systems and can be an efficient structure for similar study ventures

Ensemble-Instruct: Generating Instruction-Tuning Data with a Heterogeneous Mixture of LMs

Using in-context learning (ICL) for data generation, techniques such as Self-Instruct (Wang et al., 2023) or the follow-up Alpaca (Taori et al., 2023) can train strong conversational agents with only a small amount of human supervision. One limitation of these approaches is that they resort to very large language models (around 175B parameters) that are also proprietary and non-public. Here we explore the application of such techniques to language models that are much smaller (around 10B--40B parameters) and have permissive licenses. We find the Self-Instruct approach to be less effective at these sizes and propose new ICL methods that draw on two main ideas: (a) Categorization and simplification of the ICL templates to make prompt learning easier for the LM, and (b) Ensembling over multiple LM outputs to help select high-quality synthetic examples. Our algorithm leverages the 175 Self-Instruct seed tasks and employs separate pipelines for instructions that require an input and instructions that do not. Empirical investigations with different LMs show that: (1) Our proposed method yields higher-quality instruction tuning data than Self-Instruct, (2) It improves performances of both vanilla and instruction-tuned LMs by significant margins, and (3) Smaller instruction-tuned LMs generate more useful outputs than their larger un-tuned counterparts. Our codebase is available at https://github.com/IBM/ensemble-instruct

Antimicrobial resistance: a growing serious threat for global public health

Antibiotics are among the most important discoveries of the 20th century, having saved millions of lives from infectious diseases. Microbes have developed acquired antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to many drugs due to high selection pressure from increasing use and misuse of antibiotics over the years. The transmission and acquisition of AMR occur primarily via a human–human interface both within and outside of healthcare facilities. A huge number of interdependent factors related to healthcare and agriculture govern the development of AMR through various drug-resistance mechanisms. The emergence and spread of AMR from the unrestricted use of antimicrobials in livestock feed has been a major contributing factor. The prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria has attained an incongruous level worldwide and threatens global public health as a silent pandemic, necessitating urgent intervention. Therapeutic options of infections caused by antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are limited, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality with high financial impact. The paucity in discovery and supply of new novel antimicrobials to treat life-threatening infections by resistant pathogens stands in sharp contrast to demand. Immediate interventions to contain AMR include surveillance and monitoring, minimizing over-the-counter antibiotics and antibiotics in food animals, access to quality and affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, and enforcement of legislation. An orchestrated collaborative action within and between multiple national and international organizations is required urgently, otherwise, a postantibiotic era can be a more real possibility than an apocalyptic fantasy for the 21st century. This narrative review highlights on this basis, mechanisms and factors in microbial resistance, and key strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance

Intellectual Property Rights and the Ascent of Proprietary Innovation in Agriculture

Biological innovations in agriculture did not enjoy protection by formal intellectual property rights (IPRs) for a long time, but the recent trend has been one of considerable broadening and strengthening of these rights. We document the nature of these IPRs and their evolution, and provide an assessment of their impacts on innovation. We integrate elements of the institutional history of plant IPRs with a discussion of the relevant economic theory and a review of applicable empirical evidence. Throughout, we highlight how the experience of biological innovation mirrors, or differs from, the broader literature on IPRs and innovation. We conclude with some considerations on the relation between IPRs and market structure and the pricing of proprietary inputs in agricultur

Development and validation of a simple questionnaire for the identification of hereditary breast cancer in primary care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Breast cancer is a significant public health problem worldwide and the development of tools to identify individuals at-risk for hereditary breast cancer syndromes, where specific interventions can be proposed to reduce risk, has become increasingly relevant. A previous study in Southern Brazil has shown that a family history suggestive of these syndromes may be prevalent at the primary care level. Development of a simple and sensitive instrument, easily applicable in primary care units, would be particularly helpful in underserved communities in which identification and referral of high-risk individuals is difficult.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A simple 7-question instrument about family history of breast, ovarian and colorectal cancer, FHS-7, was developed to screen for individuals with an increased risk for hereditary breast cancer syndromes. FHS-7 was applied to 9218 women during routine visits to primary care units in Southern Brazil. Two consecutive samples of 885 women and 910 women who answered positively to at least one question and negatively to all questions were included, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values were determined.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 885 women reporting a positive family history, 211 (23.8%; CI95%: 21.5–26.2) had a pedigree suggestive of a hereditary breast and/or breast and colorectal cancer syndrome. Using as cut point one positive answer, the sensitivity and specificity of the instrument were 87.6% and 56.4%, respectively. Concordance between answers in two different applications was given by a intra-class correlation (ICC) of 0.84 for at least one positive answer. Temporal stability of the instrument was adequate (ICC = 0.65).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A simple instrument for the identification of the most common hereditary breast cancer syndrome phenotypes, showing good specificity and temporal stability was developed and could be used as a screening tool in primary care to refer at-risk individuals for genetic evaluations.</p