Recent Issues in Bangladesh-India Relations: A Bangladeshi Perspective

What are the recent issues in Bangladesh-India relations that determine the nature of the bilateral relations? This article is an attempt to investigate this question. It argues that there are a number of pertinent issues that determine the nature and state of Bangladesh-India relations. In this context, security, trade, visa, cricket, power, connectivity remain as vital issues. The article recommends that in this age of shared peace, security and prosperity, Bangladesh-India needs to explore and utilise the untapped potentials

Application of Lherzolite on the Plant Growth and on Chemical Fractionation of Lead in Metal Contaminated Soil

ABSTRACT A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of 5% application of lherzolite to a contaminated soil on the growth of radish (Raphanus sativus L.) and Japanese mustard spinach (Brassica rapa L. var. perviridis) and on chemical fractionation of lead (Pb). Both plants were grown in a sandy loam soil contaminated with Cd (4.1 mg kg ) . The source of these heavy metals contamination in soil was surface water which was previously mixed with contaminants discharged from industrial and mining operations located in Tohoku district, Japan. Plants were grown consecutively three times in the same pots. After the third harvest, soil samples were collected and analysed by sequential extraction procedure into five operationally defined fractions (F1-exchangeable, F2-carbonate bound, F3-oxides bound, F4-organically bound and F5-residual). Application of lherzolite to soil increased plant growth three folds over the control. Lherzolite addition to soil decreased 75% of exchangeable (F1), 50% carbonate bound (F2), but it increased in the oxide bound (F3) fractions of Pb. This result indicates that the reduction of Pb in exchangeable and carbonate fractions by addition of lherzolite to the soil resulted in higher growth and decreased concentrations of Pb (82 to 94%) in plant tissues

An internet of things framework for real-time aquatic environment monitoring using an Arduino and sensors

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms in natural, controlled marine and freshwater environments. The real-time monitoring of aquatic environmental parameters is very important in fish farming. Internet of things (IoT) can play a vital role in the real-time monitoring. This paper presents an IoT framework for the efficient monitoring and effective control of different aquatic environmental parameters related to the water. The proposed system is implemented as an embedded system using sensors and an Arduino. Different sensors including pH, temperature, and turbidity, ultrasonic are placed in cultivating pond water and each of them is connected to a common microcontroller board built on an Arduino Uno. The sensors read the data from the water and store it as a comma-separated values (CSV) file in an IoT cloud named ThingSpeak through the Arduino microcontroller. To validate the experiment, we collected data from 5 ponds of various sizes and environments. After experimental evaluation, it was observed among 5 ponds, only three ponds were perfect for fish farming, where these 3 ponds only satisfied the standard reference values of pH (6.5-8.5), temperature (16-24 °C), turbidity (below 10 ntu), conductivity (970-1825 μS/cm), and depth (1-4) meter. At the end of this paper, a complete hardware implementation of this proposed IoT framework for a real-time aquatic environment monitoring system is presented

Cloning, expression and purification of cold adapted acetate kinase from Shewanella species AS-11

A psychrotrophic bacterium, Shewanella sp. AS-11 was isolated from a buccinid (shell) Neobuccinum living in the Antarctic ice-covered sea. An open reading frame of 1203 bp, coding for acetate kinase gene, called ack, was amplified, cloned into the expression vector, pETY-16b, and the enzyme was overproduced by using T7 system in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). After extraction of crude recombinant acetate kinase, the desired enzyme was able to be purified on a Blue Sepharose CL-6B and Super-Q affinity column chromatography. The molecular mass of the enzyme is about 86 kDa, which is associated with two monomers. In respect of pH, the enzyme was stable between 6 to 8 and maximum activity was obtained at 7.5. The purified enzyme was stable at 30°C but ligand bound enzyme was stable at 40°C. The structural comparison to mesophilic and thermophilic acetate kinases demonstrates that the psychrophilic one contains lower number of salt bridges and cation-pi interaction. So, it can be suggested that the enzyme is cold adapted with thermolabile and flexible structure.Keywords: Acetate kinase, thermolabile, cold adapted, flexible, activityAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 11(29), pp. 7454-7463, 10 April, 201

An Improved Model of Virtual Classroom using Information Fusion and NS-DBSCAN

Virtual classroom is a latest concept of learning platform. It provides an environment by incorporating internet technology where teachers, students, researchers and interested people can interact, collaborate, communicate and explain their thoughts and views in well organized, technical and pedagogical procedure. Regarding present global context, the virtual classrooms is a popular technology. Very reknown e-learning platforms are Blackboard, Schoology, Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment), Canvas and google classroom. In this thesis, we propose an efficient model of virtual classroom to enhance the facility of current e-learning system. To develop the model of virtual classroom, the thesis integrates the policy of cloud computing with information fusion (IF) technique for providing a ubiquitous learning capacity from an e-learning platform. In our proposed model, Density Based Spatial Clustering of Application with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm is used for separating different layers of data to reduce time complexity and enhance data security. Here we also demonstrate the complete architecture of cloud based e-learning process through our proposed virtual classroom

Evaluation of microbiological quality of dried baim (Mastacembelus armatus) in Bangladesh

A study was performed for five months to assess the microbiological quality of dried Baim (Mastacembelus armatus) in Sylhet region of Bangladesh. A total of 45 dried samples were randomly collected on monthly basis from three different sources of Sylhet region; one from producer (drying yard of Lamagaji) and others from retail market (Bandar Bazar) and control (prepared in laboratory). The mean total plate count (TPC) of dried Baim from producer, retail market and control were observed 6.20 ± 0.72 ×105, 9.64 ± 1.58 ×105 and 1.61 ± 1.06×105 cfu/g, respectively, whereas, average total fungal count (TFC) were estimated 3.77 ± 0.81 ×103, 4.65 ± 1.08 ×103 and 1.78 ± 0.64 ×103 cfu/g, respectively. TPC and TFC of dried Baim of retail market were found significantly (P<0.05) highest and significantly (P<0.05) lowest in control samples than others. Twenty five samples from each source were analyzed to determine pathogenic E. coli and Salmonella sp. Hundred percent samples of dried Baim of producer and retail market were found contaminated by E. coli whereas; the controlled samples were free of E. coli. Likewise, the dried Baim samples of producer and retail market were contaminated 60% and 80% respectively with Salmonella. Dried baim sample from market was 100%, producer sample was 62% and control sample was 32% contaminated with fungi. The most common fungus species in samples were Aspergillus fumigatus, Fuserium proliferatum and Rhizopus stolonifer. The overall microbiological quality of control samples was comparatively better than the commercially produced dried Baim in Sylhet region

Gamma Radiated Wheat for Combating Devastating Blast Disease (Magnaporthe Oryzae Triticum) In Bangladesh

Wheat is a global food security crop, providing 20 percent of protein and calories consumed worldwide and up to 50 percent in developing countries. It is the second most important cereal next to rice in Bangladesh and playing an important role in attaining food security. But wheat is very susceptible to diseases that often place major biological constraints on production. In 2016, a new wheat disease called “blast” was identified by wheat scientists for the first time in Bangladesh. Wheat blast disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae triticum is causing enormous yield loss worldwide. At present, control of blast disease is a great challenge due to frequently introduction of new races of the pathogen. The present investigation focused on screening M2 population of gamma radiated wheat where four doses of radiations viz. 150 Gy, 200 Gy, 250 Gy, and 300 Gy were applied to the seeds of three wheat varieties viz. BARI Gom-25, BARI Gom-29 and BARI Gom-30 from a Cobalt 60 source (Gamma Chamber 5000). The irradiated seeds were sown in farmers’ fields of a wheat blast disease-prone area Chandbil, Meherpur Sadar. All the doses of irradiation showed a significant effect on incidence and severity of wheat blast disease in all three varieties. Among the treatments 200 Gy and 250 Gy reduced the disease effectively. Molecular detection of Magnaporthe oryzae triticum was also done using specific primer. The size of the band (350 bp) confirms the infection of M2 families by Magnaporthe oryzae triticum. Development of wheat blast resistant variety through irradiation could be a potential substitute to replace the available chemical control methods and it is described as eco-friendly, sustainable and nonhazardous strategy to reduce wheat yield loss due to blast disease