WATER MANAGEMENT IN BANGLADESH AGRICULTURE: OPTIMAL USE AND INVESTMENT POLICIES FOR ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

In Bangladesh, climatic change is likely to impact significantly upon surface and groundwater availability, as well as in other countries. The population of Bangladesh is projected to be double the current 2010 level by 2050. Demand for water will rise with the increasing demand for rice. This paper considers the optimal demand management of irrigation water with stochastic supply under climate change for a 3-year planning horizon. It also identifies the utilization of irrigation water from surface water sources to maximize the expected net social return from rice production. This is done by considering decision on dam release for rice production with reference to climate change. A stochastic dynamic programming model is developed for analyzing the levels and timing of the allocation of surface water for irrigation. The objective is to find the optimal dam release for irrigation which results in the maximum expected present value of the stream of annual net social return from rice production for the 3 years from 2012 to 2014. Net social return in a year consists of the value of rice consumed, measured by consumers’ willingness to pay for rice, less the total cost of rice production. The paper also identifies the need for irrigation infrastructure and determines the optimal investment policies for the adaptation to climate change in Bangladesh agriculture.climate change, dam release, dynamic programming, Environmental Economics and Policy,

The Effect of Temperature on the Destruction of Salmonellas in Activated Sludge

The effect of temperature on the survival of salmonellas in activated sludge was examined. The results showed that the Salmonella destruction rates increased in line with increasing temperature of the mixed liquor from 5° to 25°C, whereas at 30°C the rate declined markedly. This is most probably due to inactivation of ciliate protozoa at the higher temperature resulting in increased survival of the pathogens. The slow reduction in the number of salmonellas at 30°C may be the result of nutrient starvation, in addition to other possible mechanisms such as the lytic action of bacterial viruses

Energy-Efficient Cooperative Protocols for Full-Duplex Relay Channels

In this work, energy-efficient cooperative protocols are studied for full-duplex relaying (FDR) with loopback interference. In these protocols, relay assistance is only sought under certain conditions on the different link outages to ensure effective cooperation. Recently, an energy-efficient selective decode-and-forward protocol was proposed for FDR, and was shown to outperform existing schemes in terms of outage. Here, we propose an incremental selective decode-and-forward protocol that offers additional power savings, while keeping the same outage performance. We compare the performance of the two protocols in terms of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio cumulative distribution function via closed-form expressions. Finally, we corroborate our theoretical results with simulation, and show the relative relay power savings in comparison to non-selective cooperation in which the relay cooperates regardless of channel conditions

The occurrence of antibiotic resistant Salmonellas in sewage and the effect of primary sedimentation on their numbers

The widespread use of antibiotics has led to the occurrence of resistant strains of bacteria in sewage and in the aquatic environment. This study has shown that there is no significant change in the proportion of antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic sensitive salmonellas during sedimentation of sewage and hence these organisms must have acquil·ed resistance during the initial use of the antibiotic and not during sewage treatment. Primary sedimentation alone can remove more than 80% of the total salmonellas present in raw sewage but negligible reductions will occur if the process is not optimised. The best way of controlling the release of antibiotic resistant salmonellas into the environment is to control the prescription and use of antibiotics

A Traceability System for Sulfonamide Residues in Chicken Meat-Balls

Studies on the effect of different temperature and time for boiling and deep-frying, and power and time for micro-waving on sulfonamides (SAs) residues i.e. sulfadiazine (SDZ), sulfamethazine (SMZ), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), and sulfaquinoxaline (SQX) in chicken meat-balls were carried out. The purpose was to use the data collected to develop a traceability system model for SAs residues. Blank chicken meat was fortified with the mixed SAs standard and chicken meat-balls were produced. The cooking methods were conducted consecutively from boiling, deep-frying and micro-waving. Several methods were evaluated for the analysis of the SAs residues in the chicken meat-balls, which resulted in acceptable range of recoveries, from 82.0 to 98.9 % and RSDs from 0.7 to 7.6 %. The chromatogram of both the raw chicken meat and the chicken meat-balls showed no interfering peaks from other compounds present in the SAs analysis. Boiling of chicken meat-balls showed that temperature needs to be at 100 °C to obtain significant reduction (p<0.05) compared to 80 and 90 °C. A significant reduction (p<0.05) was observed at boiling for 6 min. In deep-frying study, significant reduction (p<0.05) of SAs concentrations was observed against the control for temperature factor. Significant reductions (p<0.05) of SAs concentrations among all the treatments and against the control were observed for the time factor. In micro-waving, the power and time factor showed various effects on reducing SAs residues in chicken meat-balls. Pearson correlation coefficient showed that time had greater effect compared to temperature on the reduction of SAs concentration upon boiling and deep-frying. Power had greater effect on micro-waving process compared to time. The SAs concentration was reduced at the same time the internal temperature increased during boiling and deep-frying. There were negative correlations for deep-frying and micro-waving between the SAs concentration and weight changes parameters. Analyses on the Reducing Half Life (RHL) showed that microwaving processes had the shortest RHL of SAs followed by deep-frying and boiling processes. The RHL for the three cooking methods were from 0.9 to 83.9 min. The traceability system model was developed by using the Visual Basic 6.0 software with the percentage of reduction and linear regression were applied as the main method for detection of SAs residues. The first detection method for the traceability system model was based on the actual percentage reductions data of SAs residues. The percentage of reductions for every SAs at different cooking method were recorded earlier from the chemical analysis and calculated to be keyed in into the system. The second detection method to track and trace the SAs residue was by using the linear regressions developed from the result of effect of cooking methods. The equations of the linear regressions were determined from the data collected and inserted into the traceability system to be used for prediction of the SAs amount. The traceability system can be used to monitor the MRLs of the SAs before and after the processing, which will make the screening and monitoring work easier for the regulatory agencies, industry workers and consumers. The system could be used to gain the confidence on the safety of the chicken meat-balls from SAs residue and also could be applied for other type of veterinary drugs and pesticides residues

Qualified audit reports of local authorities in the northern states of Malaysia

The reliability of information presented in the financial reports of local authorities is of utmost importance to enable the public to measure their performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in using public resources. The task to provide such an assurance lies with the Auditor General, who has been entrusted to enforce the auditing compliance regulations. A certificate in the form of “unqualified,” “qualified,” “adverse,” or “disclaimer” accompanied by a report on the financial affairs of the local authorities concerned will be issued after the Auditor General completes the audit of the local authorities’ financial statements. Our study on 14 local authorities comprising municipal and district councils in the Malaysian States of Perlis, Kedah and Penang found that the Qualified Certificate is the common type of audit certificate issued to the local authorities concerned during the period 1997-2001(inclusive of both years). Discrepancies in “Fixed Assets Register” ranked first among the audit incidents that led towards non-compliance to the audit procedures. This was followed by discrepancies in “Other Receivables” and “Cash Flow Statements” which ranked second and third positions respectively. Our finding also shows that size does not grant any advantage to the bigger local authority in reducing the number of audit incidents