Myanmar as a Potential Candidate for SAARC: Pave to Political and Economic Integration (PEI) with Bangladesh

Being neighbors, both Bangladesh and Myanmar (formerly Burma), although they possess potential opportunity for political and economic integration, have very limited economic, geographic and strategic cooperation over time. There are some key factors- long standing disputes over maritime boundary (now resolved) and the Rohinga Refugee problem over the decades, behind this unwillingness for being liberal in economic transactions through business and trade. Also the border (land) between Bangladesh and Myanmar occupies significant attention. This border is viewed as one of the top smuggling routes of the world. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for political and economic cooperation in South Asia, was given its institutional and organizational framework in 1985. SAARC is an economic and geographical organization comprised of eight countries- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Afghanistan of South and Southeast Asia, consisting of 21% of the world’s total population and occupy 3% of the world’s area. In terms of GDP, the economy of SAARC represents the third largest in the world. Based on the aim “to work together in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding” and “to accelerate the process of economic and social development in member states,” SAARC has been becoming a hub of international attention for political, economic and geographic integration. Being included in SAARC, Myanmar will be able to expand its business and trade horizons in wider aspects, which in turn will benefit its national economy. On the other hand, as a neighbor, Bangladesh will be able to gain its market in Myanmar. As Bangladesh and Myanmar have very good ways of communication (both land and water), both the countries can gain the most from the economic integration. Combined sea-ports for both countries can be the landmark for further development in trade and commerce with the rest of the globe. The mutual off-shore resource exploration and exploitation can build the base for escaping the fuel crisis. And finally, this, in turn, will be coordinated with ASEAN, BIMSTEC and BCIM as well

Proximate Composition, Retained Water, and Bacterial Load for Two Sizes of Hybrid Catfish (Ictalurus Furcatus X Ictalurus Punctatus) Fillets at Different Process Steps

The overall baseline (as received) moisture, protein and fat content of hybrid catfish (Ictalurus furcatus x Ictalurus punctatus) fillets were 77.8 +/- 1.38%, 16.7 +/- 0.50% and, 5.7 +/- 1.6%, respectively. Small fillets (111 +/- 19 g) had higher (P≤0.05) baseline moisture (78.6 +/- 0.87% vs 76.8 +/- 1.15%) and lower (P≤0.05) fat content (4.7 +/- 0.64% vs 6.8 +/- 1.72%) than large fillets (247 +/- 62 g), whereas protein content was similar (P\u3e0.05) for both sizes. Retained water of the final fresh and frozen fillets was 1.2 +/- 2.03% and 3.1 +/- 1.02%, respectively, irrespective of fillet size. Psychrotrophic (PPC) and total coliform plate counts (TCC) of the baseline fillets were 4 log CFU/g and 1.6 log CFU/g, respectively and were not different between the process steps, except after injection which was higher (P\u3e0.05) than baseline. Moisture-protein ratio and fat content were good (P≤0.05) predictors for retained water in catfish fillets during processing

Decentralised fish seed networks in Northwest Bangladesh: impacts on rural livelihoods

Ricefield based fish seed production (RBFSP) in irrigated spring (boro) ricefields after initial introductions by external promoters has spread among farmers in parts of Northwest Bangladesh. This approach to producing juvenile fish, rather than by specialised geographically clustered hatchery and nursery enterprises, has been recognised as a strategy for decentralised production that makes large high quality seed available locally and supports food fish production. RBFSP has been promoted by the international NGO CARE as part of a process to improve rice-based livelihoods of farming households using a farmer field school (FFS) approach in two consecutive projects between 1993 and 2005. The approach is technically simple and is based on the stocking of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) eggs and Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) broodfish in ricefields. As a new approach to farmer level fish seed production, its livelihood impacts on the farming households as well as associated actors; its adoption, adaptation and rejection process in farming households; and its cost-effectives for dissemination at farmer level were not well understood. This thesis mainly applies the concept of the sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) using tools and processes of the growing family of participatory research. A systems approach was used to ensure that the key stakeholders including households, community and extension organizations were included. The study was initiated with a well-being analysis of community households to identify poorer households before exploring impacts of RBFSP on poorer producing households (RF) compared to non-producing (NRF) households based on one-off and longitudinal surveys. Livelihoods impacts on other actors linked directly and indirectly with RBFSP were also investigated. The adoption process of RBFSP at the household level and the cost-effectiveness of its promotion were assessed. Impact studies at the household level showed that RF households were significantly larger and had lower levels of formal education than NRF. Adoption of RBFSP had improved practical skills and hence substantially improved human capital in RF households. RF households tended to have more of their ricefish plots located adjacent to their households. Poor and intermediate adopters had smaller riceplots than better-off households but higher seed production efficiencies (poor-315.1 kg fingerlings/ha; intermediate-419.1 kg fingerlings/ha) than better-off households (294.6 kg fingerlings/ha). In addition to direct consumption of large fingerlings, RF households restocked them for further growth in their household ponds in doing so increasing yields by 60%. Fish consumption increased substantially in RF households based on their own production reducing their dependency on purchase from markets. The year round longitudinal survey revealed that activities for RBFSP were compatible with their existing rice-based agriculture activities for household members including men, women and children. The relatively limited income from fingerling production improved cash flow in the low income months. Consumption of large size fingerlings from ricefields provided nutrient dense food in the ‘hungry gap’ months when supplies of wild fish were poor, smoothing consumption. Apart from RF households, RBFSP extended its livelihoods impacts to a wide range of actors in and around the seed producing community. Poor fry traders were found to be key actors in the spread and support of RBFSP. On average fry traders supplied fingerlings to 35 foodfish producers within a mean distance of 5 Km from producing households in a community where RBFSP was well established. The end users (foodfish producers) included households with their own ponds, ponds with multiple ownership and larger waterbodies leased by small groups. Locally available RFBSP juveniles were attractive to each of these groups, supplementing hatchery derived seed. A large number of complex socio-cultural and technical factors were related to household level adoption of RBFSP. The major factors included use of cash generated to prevent distress sales of rice; lack of requirement to use pesticide in ricefields; meeting the household consumption demand; capacity to restock fingerlings in ponds; lack of any negative effects on rice production; increased non-stocked fish production in riceplots; simplicity of the technology; ease of fish harvest from riceplots; increased ability to gift fingerlings/foodfish to relatives and neighbours; more efficient use of both riceplot and irrigation pumps. The most important reasons for households not attempting or quickly rejecting RBFSP were labour conflicts with other activities. However, lost access to the riceplots through changes in tenure was the most common cause of late rejection by households who had practiced RBFSP for several years after withdrawal of CARE support. Location of fish seed producing plots close to the homesteads facilitated household women to contribute to seed production activities through feeding and looking after fish. Women were able to decide and control resources generated from fingerling sales as well as choosing to gift fingerlings to their relatives. Informal transfer of fingerlings in this way stimulated spread of RBFSP. Decentralised fish seed production was promoted through FFS very cost effectively. The introduction of an improved strain of Nile tilapia (GIFT) broodfish greatly enhanced the returns from decentralised seed production based on common carp alone. High levels of secondary adoption improved benefits from promoting RBFSP. The major benefit derived from the improved returns to food fish farmers using locally produced seed. Higher levels of net present value (NPV) and benefit cost ratio (BCR) were achieved based on promotion of mixed-sex tilapia in RBFSP than mono-sex tilapia produced in a large scale central hatchery. Cost-effectiveness in terms of multiplier development impacts on ramification of secondary adopters and, income of fry traders and foodfish producers, RBFSP also showed better performance than a mono-sex tilapia hatchery

EXPLORING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN ISLAMIC BANKS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ISLAMIC TRADE FINANCING

Islamic banking (IB) is a rapidly growing sector within the global financial system with annual growth of nearly 15%. IB or Shari’ah banking as an alternative mode of banking to the conventional banking is not only restricted to Muslim societies. In particular, after the financial crisis during 2008-2009 when Shari’ah compliant assets passed the resilience test, the operations of IB has increased and geographically expanded to many countries. Today more than 500 institutions spread over globally are practicing Islamic banking and finance. Nevertheless, Islamic banking (IB) is still rather a smaller player compared to the conventional banking. One of the limitations is that IB product range is small compared to conventional banking, because IB products are restricted to remain within the tenets of Shari’ah and must follow the maqasid al- Shari'ah or the objectives of Shari’ah. Development of new products in IB hence is essential for the growth and sustenance of the sector. Therefore, conducting an in-depth study on the product development processes (PDP) in Islamic banks is a matter of academic interest with practical and professional implications. This research, hence, is a product of such motivational factors, which aimed at exploring the PDP through the opinions of participants working in relevant departments of full-fledged Islamic banks and Islamic windows in a number of countries through a questionnaire survey. By aiming that, this research surveyed 22 banks from 8 countries in South East Asia and GCC which are the main hubs of IB today. The survey was conducted through a structured questionnaire, which covered main pillars of PDP including strategy, resources, processes and Shari’ah approval processes. A special focus was given to trade financing products to have a product level deeper understanding. The research findings enabled a deeper understanding of the product development processes among Islamic banks. First, the broad finding indicated that though most of the banks' overall strategy and mission-vision statements talked about innovation at high level, but at the implementation level the focus were diluted. As per the findings 95% of the banks overall strategy agreed for innovation but only 50% banks allocated budget and 63% of banks put target for number of new products to be developed. Hence, as indicated by this study, the Islamic banks were in general slow on giving priority towards the development of new products. Second, the deeper findings of the study revealed that the strategies of product development are not standard among the Islamic banks, as various factors influence the product development. First geographical location is an important factor that influences the PDP. Second the nature of IB business (full-fledged or Islamic window) plays a role. Similarly the age, size and ownership structure of the Islamic bank are also important factors of influence in PDP. As examples, the strategies and product development processes in Malaysia vary with Bangladesh and that in GCC; the Islamic windows of conventional banks show significantly different results in developing new Islamic products compared to full-fledged Islamic banks. By emphasizing that larger product range is a critical success factor of growth for IB, this research provides a valuable contribution to the deeper understanding of PDP in Islamic banks

Legal and institutional principles and guidelines for strengthening the role of local government in Bangladesh to facilitate food security impacted by climate change

This research aims to identify legal and institutional principles and guidelines that could strengthen the role of Bangladesh local government to address food security impacted by climate change. Bangladesh has made some successes in improving food security, however, climate change impacts are threatening Bangladesh’s successes, particularly at the local level. It is recommended, internationally, that local government has the potential to address the growing impacts of climate change at local level, such as impacts on local food security. Therefore, strengthening local government role in addressing climate impacted food security is necessary. In order to improve local governance of climate change, many international policy responses have prescribed some future roles of local government and have suggested adopting some legal and institutional principles and guidelines to strengthen the roles. This research has developed a set of appropriate legal and institutional principles and guidelines for strengthening local governments’ role in climate impacted food security by integrating the recommendations of international policy responses of environment and sustainable development, climate change, food security and good governance. This research has also investigated relevant laws, policies and strategies of a developed country (Australia) and a developing country (Indonesia). Both Australia and Indonesia have a reputation for addressing climate change impacts on food security and a strong local government system. The research has identified some legal and institutional principles and guidelines in the relevant laws, policies and strategies of these two countries that are enabling local government to play an effective role in addressing climate change impacts on food security. The existing food security, climate change and local government laws, policies and strategies of Bangladesh indicate some potential roles of local government in addressing climate change impacts on food security. However, the research has identified some weaknesses in Bangladesh approaches to involve local government effectively; such as inconsistencies in laws and policies to strengthen local government, lack of legal acknowledgement of the capacity of local government, lack of resources, lack of coordination mechanisms and lack of guidelines for carrying out their effective role. This research, by considering the international recommendations and the experiences of comparative examples (Australia and Indonesia), recommends the adoption of some legal and institutional principles and guidelines to address the existing weaknesses and further strengthen Bangladesh local government roles in addressing climate impacted food security. The recommendations are: 1. Good local governance principles should be applied for strengthening local government 2. The importance of local government roles in addressing climate change impacts on food security should be acknowledged properly 3. Local government roles in climate impacted food security should be consistently reflected in climate change, food security and local government laws in Bangladesh 4. Capacity building and detailed guidelines to address climate change impacts on food security should be provided to local government. 5. Local government should have access to resources to facilitate local adaptation programs; and 6. Guideline for cooperation and coordination with other stakeholders should be provided

Electrolyte evaluation and engineering for the performance enhancement of electrochemical capacitors

As a consequence of a fast-paced technological evolution along with the acknowledgment of utilizing clean and renewable energy resources over fossil fuels, the importance of energy storage devices is widely recognized. The electrochemical capacitor (EC), commonly known as a supercapacitor or ultracapacitor, is an energy storage device that is already being used in portable consumer electronics, electrification of transportation, and grid-level applications. High power density and long cycle life are the two most prominent properties of ECs, thanks to the electrostatic nature of their charge storage mechanism. These properties are well utilized in a system where ECs are used as a backup power-boosting device to rechargeable batteries. By providing the peak power required, they eventually prolong the battery lifetime.\ua0 However, the relatively low energy density of ECs compared to rechargeable batteries limits their application as a standalone device. In addition, low operating voltage, adverse self-discharge rate, severe leakage current, elevated temperature incompatibility are some of the crucial issues that are preventing the widespread application of ECs. Besides a general discussion about ECs, the main objective of this thesis is to identify and address the above-mentioned critical challenges, and to propose and demonstrate corresponding solutions. Firstly, it is revealed that utilizing a redox-active KBr electrolyte can enhance both operating voltage and capacitance, and hence increases energy density without sacrificing power density or cycle life. Secondly, an evaluation of elevated temperature influence on the capacitive performance of ECs containing ionic liquid (IL) electrolyte demonstrates a high working temperature beyond 120 \ub0C. Thirdly, a systematic investigation of ECs containing IL at elevated temperatures shows a significant increase of the self-discharge rate with temperature and pinpoints the underlying mechanisms; at lower initial voltages the self-discharge rate is dominated by diffusion of electrolyte ions rather than charge redistribution. Fourthly, the addition of a small amount of liquid crystals (LC) in neutral electrolyte shows a reduction of self-discharge and leakage current due to slower diffusion of ions in the device, which is proposed to originate from the anisotropic properties of LC. Finally, by utilizing the thermocapacitive effect, a thermal charging of ECs containing IL is demonstrated, where a high voltage of more than 900 mV could be recovered when two devices in series are exposed to a 60 \ub0C temperature environment

Evaluation Of An Architectural-Level Approach For Finding Security Vulnerabilities

The cost of security vulnerabilities of a software system is high. As a result, many techniques have been developed to find the vulnerabilities at development time. Of particular interest are static analysis techniques that can consider all possible executions of a system. But, static analysis can suffer from a large number of false positives. A recently developed approach, Scoria, is a semi-automated static analysis that requires security architects to annotate the code, typecheck the annotations, extract a hierarchical object graph and write constraints in order to find security vulnerabilities in a system. This thesis evaluates Scoria on three systems (sizes 6 KLOC, 6 KLOC and 25 KLOC) from different application domains (Android and Web) and confirms that Scoria can find security vulnerabilities in those systems without an excessive number of false positives